Painting Experimentation. . .

Thanks to those of you who offered the benefit of your painting experience and suggestions via your comments on yesterday's posting. While finishing the final nine Minden hussars, I've allowed my mind to wander -- always a dangerous thing -- and think ahead a bit.

I've decided to conduct a painting experiment of sorts and returned a short while ago from my local arts and crafts supply store. My small purchase included a small bottle of Speedball super pigmented acrylic ink in Scarlet Red along with a tiny tube of Cotman watercolor pigment in Cadmium Red. I already had a tube of Winsor and Newton Griffin alkyd oil in Cadmium Red here in Zum Stollenkeller in my box of oil tubes.

So, onto the experiment. This evening after supper and Young Master Paul's bedtime, what I'll do is basecoat three of those RSM musketeers with Liquitex acrylic white paint (two coats). Tomorrow, once dry, I'll begin. One figure will get a wash of the watercolor, once will be treated with the acrylic ink, and the third will get a wash of the alkyd oil. I'll post a photo update here once I'm done for your perusal while I then think about which of the three treatments I'm most pleased with. As for the other colors applied to these Luebecker Musketeers, to the best of my ability, I'll try to use thin washes of acrylic color here too.

What I hope to emulate, ultimately, is that wonderful, Peter Gilder-like porcelain figure appearance. Big painting shoes to fill certainly, so we'll see how thing turn out together. My painting experimentation should be kind of interesting, at least from my vantage point. I've never varied all that much in how I go about painting my figures, save for changing to black basecoats about 25 years ago and the application of washes of brown oils over Humbrol undercoats for horses a year or so ago. So, here's to a figurative return to the (painting) experimentation* of one's youth!

*Before any of you Stollen regulars get any ideas, I was actually pretty tame in my youth despite the long hair and loud music and enjoyed a fairly stable, gentile upbringing. I learned much later on -- from good ol' Mom no less -- that my parents were actually pretty wild by comparision during their university days in the early and mid-60s, before settling down a bit once my sister and I arrived. I'll leave it to you to fill in the blanks. ;-)

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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