General Pipeclay Higginbotham-Bulling and ADC. . .

Introducing General Pipeclay Higginbotham-Bulling (at left on the Chestnut horse) and his ADC Colonel Murgatroyd. Two of Jim Purkey's wonderful range of Fife & Drum Miniatures.

Here is how things stand this afternoon with two of my 20 pledged staff figures for the December 24th 'Friendly Painting Challenge' deadline that is looming ever closer. Still a number of touch-ups to take care of, followed by gloss varnish and then groundwork, but overall, I am reasonably pleased with the way these two are turning out.

Paintwork has been (surprise, surprise) mostly in alkyd oils thinned with Original Liquin while Citadel acrylic paints have been used for most, but not all, of the detailing. In particular, I have Winsor & Newton gold straight from the tube (NOT thinned) for the lace across the fronts and on the sleeves of the good General's and Colonel's coats as well as their epaulettes.

Very easy to put it exactly where you want it, and metallic oils tend to dry much more rapidly than other colors within the medium. Great fun using the oils too, and each painting session is also a learning experience as I work to improve (and maybe one day perfect) my brushwork. Well pleased with the afternoon's work in any case. Ok, now it's back to salt mine and that stack of student papers staring me in the face from where they sit on the right end of my desk.

Comments

James Brewerton said…

great looking command, never did enjoy working with oils on my wargames figures but have used them on a few Bust's and large scale stuff.
Peace James
Exiles Painting

5:19 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Very proper-looking officers indeed, sir. They shall undoubtedly acquit themselves well on the battlefield. They may or may not win . . . but they will do it with proper "Englishness".

-- Jeff

6:02 PM

joppy said…

Beautiful job. I'm extremely envious. That's why I tend to stick to the 18th century - not so much bullion!

5:25 AM

tidders2 said…

super looking command vignette

-- Allan

6:47 AM

Giles said…

Lovely work, Stokes. You've really made these figures come alive. I must get some!

Best wishes

Giles

5:36 PM

Old School ACW said…

The AWI British are the very peak of the 18th century look for me.

Lovely figures and excellent painting Stokes,

Greg

4:56 AM

Steve-the-Wargamer said…

Nice work, Stokes - but you still aren't going to persuade me away from pure acrylics! :o)

6:32 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

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