Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II and the Stollenian Coat of Arms

Here’s a recently finished portrait of the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II, current ruler of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. Now, it’s said that the Grand Duke wished to be portrayed wearing his beloved lobster costume, complete with various orders of merit pinned to his chest. However the artist commissioned to paint Irwin-Amadeus, one Herr Maleri, felt that it might be better to portray the slightly misguided grand duke along more conventional lines. Hence the rather typical mid-eighteenth century portraiture we see before us here.

This is also a good time to offer some explanation behind the grand ducal standard posted below. The eagle-eyed among you will note that the red and white lion in the center of the standard is the familiar Hessian lion. In fact, the Stollenian dynasty descends from the same family that rules Hesse-Kassel. Stollen’s Irwin-Amadeus II is indeed a very distant cousin of Friedrich II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel since 1760.

Various second, third, and subsequent sons of the Hessian dynasty were involved in the northern crusades of the middle ages, under the auspices of Teutonic Knights, which moved eastward to “Christianize” the peoples of Northeastern Europe, leading to the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Stollen in 1230 A. D. Grand Duke Konrad- Albrecht I was first ruler of Stollen, and he was Irwin-Amadeus’s direct ancestor. The extended royal family of Stollen also has ties to the ruling houses of Denmark and Sweden besides Hesse-Kassel.

The royal colors of Stollen are a mid- to light blue and orange. Both are part of the grand ducal standard. These same colors are also seen frequently in the uniforms and battle flags of Stollen’s troops, for example the orange facings of the 2^nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers or the light blue coats of the Leib (Grand Duchess Sonja’s Own) Grenadiers, as well as the corner vents of that regiment’s standard. Ok, now I’ve got to get back into the painting mode and get going with that 80+ figure regiment of Revell plastic Austrian grenadiers.

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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