Absent Without Leave!

Well, I’ve been errant and remiss in not adding any posts for the last week or so. Please don't cane me Sir! I was led astray! However, I’ve got a good excuse -- I’ve been hard at work writing an article, which, if the wargaming gods are kind, will soon appear for public consumption. More on this as events unfold. ;-)

Otherwise, I’ve been able to get a bit of painting and varnishing in. Stollen’s Jaegers zu Fuss are now entirely finished, right down to the shiny coat of Future acrylic floor finish. I must admit that I really like the old fashioned “look” brought to my figures by a glossy protective coat. I’ve also started doing the same for the 2^nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers, which were completed (painting) in early September.

The gloss finish on these early regiments also seems to make the various colors richer, so I think I'm going to stay with this method of protecting my brushwork for a while! Finally off of their temporary bases and lined up in mass, the musketeers and jaeger look really impressive. I’m borrowing a digital camera this weekend and will hopefully have a bunch of photos to post right here next week. Thanks for your continued patience though.

On that note, a special thank you to Jeff Hudelson, the Prince of Saxe-Bearstein, for providing me with all kinds of useful information about digital cameras, batteries, macro photography, and such. If Santa Claus does not come through, I'll be watching the post-Christmas sales very closely.

Finally, the coast looks clear for some extra painting this coming weekend. My wife is visiting her sister in Cincinnati, so it will be me and the kitty here by ourselves. If Rannveig does not spend too much time meowing for attention and her Fancy Feast catfood, I’ll be able to make up for some lost hours the last couple of weeks. I’m going to try to make a real dent in the two-gun battery of artillery and crew that’s been sitting on my painting table since late October. Let’s see how far I can get with 13 figures and two cannon. Stay tuned.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

First, thank you for the kudus, but I was just trying to help.

Looking forward to seeing those photos.

-- Jeff

1:51 AM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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