I must be crazy to bicycle 30 miles for ice cream in weather this hot!

Just a quick update this hot, hot, hot afternoon. I just finished the bronze scabbard tips, sword hilts, white waistbelts, and swordknots on the enlisted men as well as the bronze scabbard tips, sword hilts, silver sashes, hat tape, and sword knots on the NCOs and officers of Freiherr Wilhelm’s Pioneer Battalion. Besides the same sword related stuff, the battalion drummer got silver hat tape and a leather-colored apron too.

My partner in crime on Vancouver Island, Jeff von Saxe-Bearstein, asked several days ago about “hat tape”, and this unit will indeed have it. It just seems to make everything look a little more “finished” I think. Admittedly, this is a tedious step, and it's daunting when one has 30-60+ figures sitting on the table, looking up at you as if to say, "Well, where's our hat tape? Get on with it!"

Fortunately, only one small mistake this time around with and NCOs hat, and the problem was easily corrected by soaking up the misplaced paint with a damp brush. I can't count the number of times I've relied on Jim "Alte Fritz" Purkey's paint removal tip in the last year or so. It's been a real help.

Anyway, all that remains is the white hat tape for the enlisted men, the officer’s saddle cloth, and some nice, reddish-brown for his horse, which will be a “chestnut” this time. Hope to finish all this later this evening after a bike ride and dinner. Then, I can make a few touch-ups, apply the Future floor finish tomorrow, and we are all done. Photo update to follow once all work is completed. Stay tuned!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

It depends upon the sculpting of course, but painting hat tape on most figures is very easy.

Don't use the tip of the brush. Instead run the side of the brush over the top edge of the hat brim.

With most figures this does a very nice job of delivering a nice thin line of paint for the tape.

Give it a try.

-- Jeff

8:30 PM

Steve-the-Wargamer said…

I'm with Stokes - I find the hat tape to be the worst part of the whole painting experience though I confess to also using Jeff's technique for doing it.... :o))

Stokes - can you share with us the paint removal technique you mentioned??

6:53 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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