First Three Test Figures Completed. . .

Here is one photograph of the three figures in question. From left to right: A wash of Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil Cadmium red; A wash of Cottman Watercolor Cadmium red; A wash of Speedball Acrylic Scarlet Red. In each case, I applied an undercoat of Humbral orange enamel before applying the red wash on top.

By popular request, here is a close-up of the three test figures. I now see a few areas in need of touching up, but they are basically done.

After some time spent adding more details to the last nine Minden hussars' horses, yesterday evening, I got to work on those first three RSM95 test figures. I'm fairly well pleased with how things have goone so far, but I am leaning toward the sample at far left, whose red coat was the result of a wash of Winsor-Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil (Cadmium Red) over an undercoat of Orange Humbrol. The orange shows through the red just enough give the coat an orange-ish scarlet hue.

The middle figure, painted with Cotman watercolor, and the figure at right, painted with Speedball ink, look nice, but the colors are so intense that the Humbrol orange undercoat does not show through at all although I used thinned washes here too. So, before I do anything else, I want to try two more test figures, one with a wash of red alkyd oil and another with the red watercolor (both over white undercoats) before I make my final decision. However, at present, I am leaning toward the figure at the far left right (oops!). . . the far left.

Incidentally, the uniforms worn by the infantry of the Free and Hanseatic cities of Luebeck (the model for the figures above), Bremen, and Hamburg during the 18th Century have the dual advantages of being both very colorful and easy to paint in short order. It's a shame we don't see more of them on wargaming tables.

Later. . .
It occurs to me that I might use the Speedball red ink as a shadow color (between torsos and arms) on top of the Winsor & Newton Alkyd Cadmium red. This is a bit more subtle than black lining, but I'll continue to use black lining against the white areas. Oh, and the shadow color on the figures' faces is from an old battle of Ral Partha "Leather."

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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