Gallping toward the Midnight Deadline. . .

It's 10:28am here. We're in the Homestretch. Can I make the February 15th-May 15th Painting Challenge Deadline by Midnight CDT tonight?

Just a few things to wrap up here on those two kneeling Minden Croat vignettes. Some final painting on the dead horse for the first base. Red facings, lace, shoulder belts, and small straps plus a bit of dark lining on the second. Two coats of acrylic gloss for both (four figures in total). Finish with groundwork which involves a few different steps.

Not that much really. Should be able to accomplish everything in fairly short order. But hold on a moment. Factor in May Term teaching today for three hours, mowing the grass late this afternoon before it rains again (possibly the forecast says), supper, and the usual evening family things. Hmm. . . Is it possible? Well, I'll give it the old college try. The Grand Duchess might be on her own this evening after the Young Master has turned in at 8pm. Terraining the bases might, however, need to wait until tomorrow evening. Stand by.

On another note, the GD of S blog has managed to pick up a few more followers in the last several weeks. A hearty "Welcome!" to all of you who have just tuned in. Tell your wargaming friends and neighbors. Help spread the good word. Let's see if we can hit the 200 followers mark by September 1st as I continue assembling and painting vignettes plus that planned reinforced company of pioneers/miners along with some other (a-) historical surprises that are in the the longer term painting queue. Once we are back from Mexico in July, I've also got some actual gaming planned too. It's been too long. Summers are a good time east of the sun and west of the moon here in the Grand Duchy of Stollen.

Update. . .
I got as far as a coat of acrylic glass yesterday evening by about 10:30pm and the decided to hit the sack. The gloss seemed to be taking quite a while to dry anyway, but the figures look good this morning. Limited terrain work this evening plus the inevitable touch up or two, and then I take a break for the remainder of May while I write the article that goes with all of these different vignettes. Photos to follow later this evening.

Comments

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 ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog