Another New Look for the GD of S Blog. . .

Do children even send letters (or perhaps text messages by now) to Santa Claus and Father Christmas anymore? Or have we done our cynical best as a society to ruin that for them?

Well, I don't know about you, but I was not happy with yesterday's failed experiment with a more dynamic appearance for the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog, which also made blog administrations behind the scenes more difficult that necessary. So, back to the drawing board! However, on the suggestion of one commentator, I have found a nice image of 18th century damask wallpaper that I have set as the background of the blog. For the time being, we'll leave things as they are. I'm not 100% pleased with the blog's appearance, but I lack the time and inclination to get into learning HTML, which might permit easier manipulation/customization of things here.

No painting last night as I was simply too wiped out by evening to contemplate picking up a brush. I woke at 4am yesterday morning due to some noise on the street or something and was unable to fall back to sleep. Finally, I gave finally gave up the ghost a little over an hour later and rose just after 5am, operating yesterday on only about 4 hours of sleep. Sigh. Afternoon naps, sadly, are out of the question right now since we cannot get the Young Master to be quiet enough for Dad to remain asleep longer than 10 minutes or so. Oh, he has his afternoon quiet time, actual naps being relegated to the past at this point, but the concept of quiet reading, coloring, or contemplation for 2-3 hours in the late afternoons sometimes continues to elude him at only three+ years of age.

Anyway, I'd better get to that final stack of student papers in my briefcase now, so I can get that wrapped up and off my mind for a few weeks. After The Indras' final gig tonight, it's time for some pre-Christmas activities, a social occasion or two, final shopping errands next week, and some serious painting in the evenings. And then there is Neu Sittangbad to lay out and resume once again, General de Latte willing and permitting. A busy time indeed!

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

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 ...

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...

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