Drowning in. . . Papers!

Another seasonal image this afternoon, this time featuring an old image of that jolly old elf in fur-trimmed robes and boots but with blue trousers. Why, he almost looks like guardsman!

Just time for a quick post today since I am off -- "Oh, you're off alright!" the Grand Duchess might say -- to pick up two courses' worth of final papers from my mailbox at school. :-( Then, I've got two days to read and grade them (about 40 papers, eight-to-ten pages each) before picking up the final batch on Thursday. My stated goal is to have all of my final grading finished and submitted by Saturday morning, so that I can attend to a new syllabus early next week before signing off from school work for a while. . . until after the first of the year. Whew!

Enjoyed some painting last night for a few hours, and two of the vignettes are now getting very much closer to completion. At this point, I think, I'll work on the two Fife & Drum British officers tonight and hopefully finish them before moving onto a base full of Minden Prussian officers mounted and on foot. Oh, and there is a lone Englishman by Fife & Drum on that base too. We are in the detailing phase in which I am using mostly Citadel acrylics, but I'll be touching up a few select areas with oils too to produce as much of that lovely jewel-like translucent appearance as possible. Watch for some photo updates in the next few days.

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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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