Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all American visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen wherever in the world you might find yourselves. We have a chilly, gray day with falling temperatures here in our neck of the Midwest, the Grand Duchess brought me a H-U-G-E mug of black coffee a short while ago as I yawned and woke up in bed, and we have over an hour until ol' Tom Turkey goes in to oven. Otherwise, it's still in the house at the moment, which is never a bad thing. Happy sigh. It's a good day. And I feel very fortunate indeed.

Between preparing a couple of pies yesterday along with another dish, which I can't quite recall at the moment, I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours work on those Garrison Miniatures Prussian artillery crew, who are actually looking much more like Schaumburg-Lippe artillery crew with their pretty, light blue uniforms. Not much left to do there except for a couple of tiny things, and then its onto my usual two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish. I next must actually order a couple of RSM large guns from the Dayton Painting Consortium for the figures to crew and paint them once they arrive.

Even more exciting, I also began preparing some of those 30 Holger Eriksson dragoons that I purchased, via Peter Johnstone of Spencer Smith Miniatures, during the summer of 2009, for eventual base-coating in the next ten days or so. These are really wonderful little figures. A bit rough around the edges by modern sculpting and casting standards, but they will look mighty fine once painted and deployed on the table.

And since I've got so much blue, white, and red in my tabletop forces for the Grand Duchy of Stollen and its mortal enemy the Electorate of Zichenau already, I have more or less decided to base the uniform for this next batch of figures on that of Prussia's Trumbach Dragoons -- that is, dark green coats, breeches, and saddlecloths with yellow facings and lace. It should speed painting a bit, and I have checked my ancient tin of Humbrol British Rifle Green, which dates from late December 1988 when I purchased it from the old MiniFigs HQ on Graham Road in Southampton, the U.K. I think there is probably just enough solvent pigment left in the tin for one more regiment. Keep your fingers crossed!

So, there you have it. A fairly quiet couple of days here at Stollen Central, but some painting and culinary activity have kept things both interesting and productive. Ah! I see that my coffee needs refilling, so I'll bid you a fond farewell until your next visit the Grand Duchy of Stollen where the Christmas season is just getting underway. I wonder if the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II will remember to purchase a gift for his long suffering manservant Hives this year?

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

Fitz-Badger said…

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well!
Things are cooking at my house as I write.

1:40 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

A most heartfelt "Happy Thanksgiving" to your entire household (not forgetting your cat).

Here on Vancouver Island it just continues to snow. We've got almost 6" of the white stuff today and it just keeps snowing.

-- Jeff

5:54 PM

Capt Bill said…

All of Beerstein wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving...

6:20 PM

tidders2 said…

Happy thanksgiving

Gobble Gobble

-- Allan

9:18 AM