Baby's Room Almost Finished. . .

A quiet day today enabled me to get just about done applying a coat of Olympic "Flax" (golden yellow. . . that's more or less aurore to you Bonapartists!) to baby's room-to-be. In-laws are mercifully on the way back to Seattle, the Grand Duchess otherwise occupied with their departure, and all is once again right with my little corner of the world!

I'll finish trimming in around the windows tomorrow afternoon once I get home and change clothes. And then a quick second coat with the roller and voila! I'll also snap a few photographs and post them if there is time before dinner and our first birthing class. I dare say that the rooms is hardly recognizable after a single coat of primer and the first coat of paint. Makes me wonder why on earth I just didn't go ahead with painting the room a year ago.

On other fronts, I was up really early this morning (before 5am) thanks to the Grand Duchess, who had occupied the middle of the bed and was sound asleep, and I was unable to wake her, so I could ask her to move the blazes over. Resigned, I got up quietly, tiptoed downstairs, made coffee, and retreated to recesses of Zum Stollenkeller where I managed to apply a coat of black gesso to the first four of those thirty RSM Austrian cuirassiers. Ah, it always gets the blood pumping when I begin a new unit that's been waiting in the queue. Charge!

Comments

jmilesr said…

Good luck with all your baby preparations - I remember being scared to death by the video they showed at our first lamaze class. I think the instructors do it on purpose to tease the men.

By the way, get used to early morning painting, once the baby arrives that me be your only time at the bench!

My son goes off tomorrow for his first day of High School - Yikes!

9:16 PM

tradgardmastare said…

Stokes
Good to read of your journey towards the arrival of the heir to the Duchy of Stollen.
I look forward to the new unit progressing as well as more pictures of the babies room.
My youngest started High School last week- time does indeed fly...
best wishes
Alan
p.s what about raising a guard unit of lancers/ulans/horse grenediers ,I don't think you have one yet

12:17 AM

johnpreece said…

I am impressed by your energy, and yes, I think that shade of blue is best left for uniforms.

The early morning may well become a refuge as tme goes by. Use it well!!

John

1:09 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

The reason that you didn't paint the room a year ago was that you didn't have a baby on the way back then.

And, of course, you had better things to paint . . . miniatures!

-- Jeff

2:26 AM

Anonymous said…

Get used to the early mornings! Also the idea that all that hard work painting the room will be over with the first pack of crayons!

Matt

8:10 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 ...

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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