Slowly getting there with the final company of fusiliers. . .

Well, along with planning the painting of "the nursery", making another batch of slow-cooked North Carolina pulled pork BBQ with red slaw (an all day process), and weathering the hottest weather we've had all summer, I have managed to do a bit more painting on that final batch of RSM Prussian fusiliers this weekend -- shoulder belts, musket stocks, barrels, and bayonets, musket straps, hair and mustaches, plus some additional metal bits and pieces that aren't really visible here. Basically all that's left are the mid-blue facings, the white ruffles at the front on the men's necks, and the rest of the metal trim on the fusilier caps.

Here's a close-up shot of two figures, front and back, which gives a better idea of what I describe above. The green shoulder strap denotes the fourth company. The first, second, and third companies have red, blue, and white shoulder straps respectively. Not exactly historical, but it helps me to keep things more organized in my painting, storage, and on the table top.

Last, here's a shot of the entire regiment -- the 7th (Von Flickenhoffer's) Fusiliers. Can't wait to post a picture or two of the entire finished regiment of 80-figures. Yes, 80-figures. Don't try this at home, kids!

Looking ahead, the RSM95 Austrian cuirassiers off to the right of the picture are the next unit in the painting queue. They've been sitting around on my desk since last November, so I'm eager to get going with them. And I think I'll paint them as -- wait for it -- Austrian cuirassiers! I just like the white and madder red uniforms. The color scheme is, frankly, better than anything I could dream up myself. Of course, you know that I'll give the regiment some kind of imaginary and vaguely humorous title, don't you?

Ok, it's off to bed with me now. We have a Spanish comedy on DVD to watch courtesy of NetFlix. Sleep well everyone!!!

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

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...

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 Grand Duchy of Stollen

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