Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American visitors! Not much to report for the Grand Duchy of Stollen today. My 13 artillerymen sit patiently on the painting desk where they have been since a Monday evening. But I have managed to complete the flesh tone, grey coats, and GW “Goblin Green” bases since my last post here. Oh, and the breeches, vests, facings, and turnbacks were painted a lovely bright shade of GW “Scorpion Green” too. Still a fair amount to complete, but the large parts are done. I might be able to make some additional progress during our long holiday weekend here in the USA.

Something fun arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon: Scenarios for Wargamers by C. S. Grant!!! The book contains 52 different scenarios, most of which can be used for any period albeit with a few minor alterations. I can’t wait to try a few of these out once I have finished enough figures for some small preliminary actions between the Grand Duchy of Stollen and the Electorate of Zichenau. I particularly like the river crossing scenarios, since The Zwischen River separates the two imaginary states and must be crossed for an invasion to proceed. Anyway, I read until late into the night using my tiny reading light that clips to the cover of a book, so my wife was able to sleep undisturbed by too much light from my bedside lamp.

Enjoy the day everyone -- Gobble, gobble!

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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

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...

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 ...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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