A dark, wet morning. . .

Here at Stollen Central, it's a dark, wet morning outside, so how about a bright, cheery image of the Christmas market in Bremen, Germany today? And for good measure, another old German image of Santa Claus/Father Christmas follows below. Are you detecting a theme? In blue again today, mainly because a musak version of 'Blue Christmas' is on the radio in the background at the moment. It almost sounds like Bert Kaempfert's orchestra. Ok, enough prattle. Time to serve breakfast to the Young Master, and then it's back to the painting table!

Comments

Conrad Kinch said…

Merry Christmas Stokes.

9:04 AM

Peter Douglas said…

Stokes

Xmas cheer to you to sir. I may be slow on the uptake but is your duchy the source of the wonderful looking Christmas treat that my family (but not alas I since I am celiac and we have yet to find a GF stollen)is enjoying for breakfast this week?

Cheers
PD

11:05 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you for the good wishes, men. Yes, the Grand Duchess will indeed bake a couple of her authentic Dresdner Stollens a little later this month as we near Christmas, and I can't wait. Buttery, sugary, and definitely not circulatory system friendly, but oh, so good! My mouth waters at the thought.

Best Regards,

Stokes

11:30 AM

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog