Dragoon Horses Coming to Your Emotional Rescue!

After a couple of days worth of extensive work, the bright bay horses of Squadron A are nearing completion. All that remains are the white blazes on the muzzles, and socks/stockings on some of the legs, save Colonel Von Cranz at left, who's mounted "on a fine Arab charrrr-ggger", which is all done.

The brown on all of the other horses is Grumbacher's "English Red" artist's oil color. Yes, "that" tube given to me by good 'ol Mom about 23 years ago! Takes a couple of days for this particular color to dry to the touch. Pretty rapid for an oil-based color when you think of it. I have used and loved this color for bays and chestnuts for many, many years. It covers extremely well, and it takes only a tiny daub of paint on the palette to color many horses.

I used a #2 synthetic round brush to apply the color to each horse. Slightly small for such a large painting job, but it enabled me to work the color around things like black reins, harnesses, and other details fairly easily, leaving a very thin black line to offset various tiny details and other colors already applied. And guess what? Almost no mistakes to fix. Things like that don't happen too often here in the Grand Duchy of Stollen!

Oh, I've also managed to complete a number of other smaller details, using GW, Poly S, and Ral Partha acylics since the last update, but most are invisible to the eye here. You can see that the drummer's drum is complete however. Next up are the following details:

1) Yellow collars on the red coats
2) Musket stocks and barrels
3) Swords, sword pommels, and scabbards
4) Stirrups and stirrup leathers
5) The "girths" (the large, heavy strap that secures a saddle) across each horse's chest
6) White Crossbelts, waistbelts, and valise straps
7) Then they're done, and it's time to move onto the next group of nine figures -- Squadron B

I've decided to get all 30 figures painted before I varnish them with Future acylic floor polish. Will probably let them sit for a week or so (for the oil to dry out) and move onto the RSM grenadiers in the meantime. Sigh. A wargamng geek's work is never done. But at least the Grand Duchess Sonja will always know where I am. . . sequestered away in the "The Purple Room"!

Comments

Anonymous said…

I do like those horses, and they are in such dynamic poses. I'm looking forward to seeing the regiment when it's completely finished!

Best wishes

Giles

10:22 AM

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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