"And you'll love the lemony-fresh scent!"

Last Saturday (December 09, 2006), Henry Hyde hosted a game at his home, featuring his marvelous collection of Spencer Smith figures. The armies were augmented by a few 25mm MiniFigs too, illustrating how well the two ranges work together. Anyway, here's one photo of the proceedings. You've simply got to check the rest of Henry's photos out -- there are about 60 in all. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/yd5sbu

As for me, I’ve just spent the better part of the evening washing Stollen’s as yet nameless dragoon regiment and its mounts in lemony fresh Dawn dishwashing liquid – “Dawn gets grease out of your way!” The dragoons smell nothing like horses -- we had a few when I was a boy – which is a good thing since I’ve got the 30-strong regiment lined up over on my painting/radio desk.

This brings me to my next interesting, though useless, piece of information. ;-) The 41 meter band of the shortwave spectrum was finally quiet earlier this evening, so I was able to scrub each figure and horse to the accompaniment of Croatian Radio in, you guessed it, Serbo-Croatian! Listening to shortwave radio while I work on my soldier collection is a long standing tradition – both hobbies have been a part of my life since the autumn/winter of 1983-84. There’s nothing quite like listening to a news report on events in Russia, China, or Egypt while painting in the details on some French Napoleonic (or even Stollenian) artillery! Ka-boom!!!

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...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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