Building Materials and References

The old German town of Soldau, located in present-day Poland.

Building Materials
I’m not a total packrat, but I have saved and stored a few boxes worth of stuff that is useful for wargaming scenery over the years. I’ve also purchased a few other inexpensive items when and as I’ve needed them. Here's a brief list of the things used to create my own old school "Grantian" buildings and houses:

*Heavy card from the back of writing and artist’s sketch pads (I'm embarrassed to mention how much of this I've saved over the years).
*Balsa wood
*Elmer’s carpenter’s glue
*Acrylic or poster paints
*Steel ruler
*Small carpenter’s square
*X-acto knife and plenty of standard triangular blades
*Cheap paintbrushes
*Black Sharpie or Flair permanent marker of felt tip pen
*A little imagination and handiness

References
The first thing you need to do is to find suitable photos of the building “type/style” you wish to model. Things like books and vacation brochures or pamphlets are invaluable here, but the internet can be a great help too whether you are creating structures for the American Civil War, the Old West, or Japanese samurai scenarios.

Although I have a coffee table book on the Hanseatic League, with lots of great color photos, I turned to the web because I wanted to see examples of buildings from smaller (once German or German inhabited) cities and towns across Poland and the Baltic countries. So, I thought back over my history and geography and did an image search on Google, typing in former names like Reval, Dorpat, Allenstein, Tapiau, Soldau, Gumbinnen, Heydekrug, Eydtkuhnen, and the like. Try it yourself and see what you turn up.

Whatever you particular period/area of interest, the number of images out there in cyberspace is amazing and impressive. After finding a bunch of old and newer photos, I created a folder on my computer desktop and saved the results of my query into it, providing easy points of reference whenever they were needed. You can see one such image above. Next time, we’ll begin the building process in earnest.

P.S.
Almost forgot to mention -- There have now been more than 20,000 visits to the Grand Duchy of Stollen!

Presenting the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere!!!

Here they are, with the rearmost nine figures still drying, three squadrons of the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere, now in the service of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. And now, it's onto that artillery!

And It's the End of September!!!

Saxony's Ploetz Cuirassiers, an illustration lifted from the Kronoskaf website, which has thus far guided my spectacularly glacial painting of 30 28mm Eureka Saxon cuirassiers purchased all the way back in October 2016. A gray, cool Saturday here in Mid-Michigan with rain in the forecast. The Grand Duchess is away at a conference, so it's just "The Boys" here at home. The Young Master (almost 15) has retreated to his room for something or other following breakfast while I have stolen back down here to Zum Stollenkeller (masquerading as my office) with a second mug of coffee and both cats comfortably ensconced nearby. Enjoying the late morning and still in my pajamas! Not much planned for today beyond designing a couple of promotional flyers for workshops my department is presenting (small parties we will throw?) in October and November. With maybe a bit of on the next podcast script. More important, I am toying with the idea of returning for an hour or...

Happy September 2nd!!!

T his weekend, the question of what, precisely, constitutes an "imagination" came up in an online forum of which I am a part. To be fair, the issue originates from further afield in a Facebook group that I am not a member of, but I weighed in with my own view. The following was in response to the question posed yesterday (Sunday) morning by an exasperated member of my own rather more gentlemanly town square, who had been met with a strident response to information he shared about his (admirable) hobby activities on said FB group. Here is, more or less, what I wrote: To my mind, the concept of imagi-nation(s) is a broad one. It can range from historical refights or what-if scenarios/battles/campaigns between armies of a particular era, to completely made up combatants operating in a quasi-historical setting, to the rather generic red and blue forces of the Prussian Kriegspiel that examine a particular tactical problem, task, or exercise. ...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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