Ching-ching-ching-ching-a-ling. . .

Here is a photograph of one portion of Dresden, Germany's Christmas market or Striezelmarkt.  This particular Christmas market is one of the largest and best known around German-speaking Euope as well as being one of the oldest.  According to the Grand Duchess, however, the Christmas market in Nuernburg is prettier.

Just a quick note this morning since today will prove busier than originally intended (sigh).  In any case, I made good progress with the current batch of four RSM Prussian musketeer figures yesterday and might, just might be able to finish them tonight. . .   and then apply a white basecoat to the next four.  I'm really starting to get the hang of painting thin glazes of color over a white basecoat too.  In fact, I might be so bold as to suggest that painting goes a bit more easily this way than it does when using a black basecoat.  But I'm not quite there yet.  We'll see how I feel once all 60 of the mustering Luebecker Musketeers are finished.  

Oh, and today's post title is supposed to resemble the sounds of sleighbells in the snow, something that we used to hear once in a while when I was growing up in rural southeastern Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia (Berks County).  We used to get lots of snow every winter back then, and there was a family along our road who owned a couple of ponies and a sleigh.  Whenever we had a sizable snowfall in the winter, sometimes as early as late November, they would invariably hitch up the ponies to the sleigh and go for a jaunt along the road.  And few things sound as seasonal, or happy as sleighbells jingling by during the evening hours.  While I've yet to enjoy a sleighride myself, I certainly urge you to bundle up and give it a try should the opportunity ever present itself.

 And here is the current batch of the Luebecker Musketeers just after their Humbrol Orange enamel coats have been glazed with a very thin coating of Winsor-Newton Griffin Alkyd Cadmium Red.  Still a way to go until they are finished, but I'm finding that once the main colors are blocked in, the rest, including those infernal touch-ups and black lining, goes fairly rapidly.  Once these are done, they will bring the number of completed figures up to 16 in total.  Then it's time for a few officers, the colonel's horse, a drummer, and some NCOs plus the standard bearer.