Just a Few Days Left until the BIG Day!!!

Another unusual Victorain-era St. Nick with purple robes once again. I think one of the reasons that I like these older Christmas images so much is that they are fairly subdued relative to many, more recent seasonal images, and that fits in with my general aesthetic philosophy -- less is more!

Found a couple of hours for some painting last night and worked in a slightly different order this time. While my enthusiasm is high, during the early part of the painting process, I'm tackling the more difficult, smaller parts of the figures, i.e., lace edging, belts, facings, etc. That will leave the fairly large, mindless, and easier-to-do area (breeches, coats, and saddlecloths) for last, when I just want to finish the darn things and move on to something else. Filling those in with the requisite colors will be easy, kind of like coloring in a coloring book with crayons as a small child. So, yesterday evening, it was the lace edging on saddlecloths and the edges of cuirasses along with several shoulder belts and cuirass straps, but I ran out of time. That means I'll need to finish these this evening before continuing on with red facings and turnbacks. Here are a few photographs to illustrate what I'm jabbering about. . .

Here's the squadron officer with his silver saddlecoth and red cuirass lace edging all done.

And here is a picture of one of the third squadron troopers with his lace edging and belts all finished.

For good measure, here's a shot of that same trooper's back, showing things in a bit more detail. Darn! Looks like my bottle of Ral Partha white his become grainy. Grrrrr. . . How did I miss this? I'll have to retire it and begin using my bottle of GW Skull White to finish up this step tonight.