It's Already December 2nd Everyone!

Here's an inviting photograph of the Christmas market in Bremen, Germany. The Grand Duchess and I enjoyed coffee several times at an outdoor cafe just in front of the gabled house at the center of the picture when we were in Bremen for three days last summer. Our stay, my first time back to this charming city since February 1986, had an almost magical quality about it. Bright, sunny, and warm weather with about 20 hours of daylight at a time.

This time of year, in German speaking areas of Europe, and perhaps other places on the continent too, there are yearly Christmas markets, much like the Christkindlmarkt in Downtown Chicago each December. The Grand Duchess informs me that it's authentic, right down to the German vendors who come over to the United States for the month. It's a lovely tradition that I didn't learn about until after I met the Grand Duchess, who lived in Berlin and Dresden for several years during the 1990s.

So, imagine walking around on a cold afternoon through a lively, cheerful crowd, browsing the wares sold in all of the stalls, making a few purchases -- maybe a couple of handblown glass tree ornaments or some fancy hard candies, and then stopping in one of the warming huts to drink a mug of hot gluehwein (mulled wine) before continuing on toward the food. Why, it's a perfect way to kick off the Christmas Season!

Anyway, besides seasonal ornaments and foods for sale, Christmas markets also sell all manner of Christmas sweets and goodies (I'm partial to the hot cinnamon almonds myself) plus various other kinds of handicrafts and gifts. And the bratwurst on kraut with mustard! Perhaps it's a good thing that we won't make the Chicago Christkindlmarkt this year because I could eat my weight in that. But in a few years, when "Paulchen" is a bit bigger, stand back!

On the painting front, I had to take a break last night. The Grand Duchess had some work to do in her office, so I looked after Young Paul, who was wide awake for quite some time. Later, I had my own work to attend to. . . Yes, it's that point in the academic term. . . the dreaded student papers! The less said about these, the better, but it took until almost midnight to read, grade, and provide commentary on 15 four to six page essays, so no time for painting. ;-( However, this evening, it's onward to a few touch ups with the paintbrush and then a coat or two of Future/Klear, depending on how my time runs. Tally ho!

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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