A Personal Standard for Irwin Amadeus II

Just a few minutes to update things here at the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog. Today is the Grand Duchess Sonja’s birthday – perpetually 29, thank you – so, we’ve been spending the day together with a hike in a nearby nature preserve, dinner out, some gifts, and a chocolate cake to follow shortly when she’s finished talking on the phone to her parents. Tomorrow, Sonja leaves for two months in Germany to begin research for her next book. :-( Then it’s just the kitty and me until July 1^st. So, I’ll have bit more time to paint those RSM grenadiers, which have languished on the painting table the last week or so thanks to various drafts of student papers vying for my time. Sigh.

Anyway, thanks are due to Jeff Hudelson, of Saxe-Bearstein, yet again for his latest suggestion. It seems Grand Duke Irwin –Amadeus II needs a personal standard to mark his place on the battlefield. And given the recent accounts of his misadventures involving a lobster costume, Jeff felt that a lobster would be the perfect heraldic device. I must say that I agree, and I wish that I’d thought of it first. Too close to the forest to see the trees I guess!

With this in mind, I’ve messed around a bit with some lobster clipart (you’d be surprised how much of that there is out there in cyberspace) and altering the colors of some 18^th century Prussian standards from Warflag. But, I’m not sure I like the results. I might just end of painting a stylized orange lobster onto some kind of light blue flag that I do myself. Some of you might recall that Stollen’s colors are light blue and bright orange.

Once I have a design I like, I’ll order a 25mm MiniFig dragoon standard bearer, to match Irwin-Amadeus and his staff of two, who will personally escort the Grand Duke on the battlefield, all the while carrying his personal lobster standard! Can’t say when I’ll get this tiny side project done, but expect a photo or two here in the next several weeks. Anyone up for a clambake this summer?

Comments

marinergrim said…

Belated Happy birthday wishes to the Grand Duchess. All ladies are forever young in the hearts of men.

hope you've given Sonja a booklist for YOUR research needs whilst she's in Europe.

4:27 AM

Auston Jeff Butler said…

Very grand idea, I hadn't thought of a personal figure for the duke, let alone his standard.

12:09 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 ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

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