A Rainy, Dreary Good Friday. . .

Above is the latest batch of figures to get my attention -- the third company of von Flickenhoffer's Fusiliers. Here they are, getting their tan undercoat before the application of white. Just to break things up a bit, I went ahead and started the fusilier caps this time. Completing all of the flesh, hair/wigs, and at least the basic mid-blue and metal plates really helps to make the figures look like something even though there is still much to do.

The title of this post says it all, really. Still, the long weekend is looking up! Clearer, warmer weather tomorrow and Sunday apparently, plenty of time to work on the above figures, time to put the figures into their final starting positions for the Saegewerkdorf Village game with Jeff Hudelson, and maybe time for a bikeride with the Grand Duchess tomorrow or Sunday (and maybe both?).

Plus, my band The Indras is playing out tomorrow evening at the NV Ultra Lounge, an upscale bar about 10 minutes away from here in Normal, Illinois, right next door to Bloomington. Our final rehearsal last evening here in Zum Stollenkeller sizzled as we ran through 25 old rockers in about 90 minutes. If that was any indication of how things will go tomorrow evening, it should be a good show. But for now, I've got a few student papers to catch up on. . . Yes, sometimes those are like the brooms carrying the buckets of water in Disney's Fantasia. They just never stop coming.

Comments

littlejohn said…

wish I could hear your band...break a leg!

--dave

9:33 PM

Bloggerator said…

How was the gig, Stokes?

Greg

6:05 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

It's a strange thing to hear a room full of people cheering. . . By and large the date on Saturday evening went incredibly well, and we might have a chance for a return engagement at some point in the near future. Who would have thought that we'd find a willing audience among a bunch of university aged people? Very strange indeed!

Best Regards,

Stokes

7:54 PM

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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