Much Afoot at Fife and Drum. . .

Back to the Grand Duchy after a lengthy absence in the name of family vacation. A good time was had by all, but it was extremely nice -- after navigating three airports, two flights, along with United States Immigrations and Customs officials plus a lengthy drive home from Chicago's O'Hare International mind you -- to walk through one's own front door and close it once the suitcases were unloaded.

So. Not much going on here at the moment just yet, although I plan to dive back into command vignettes shortly, and maybe even stage a solo game at the start of August. However, there have recently been lots of neat developments over at Fife and Drum Miniatures, where new Prussian artillery equipment, limbers, wagons, and horse teams have emerged for sale. Prices are competitive too, and the sculpting/casting is top notch. But see for yourselves by visiting Fife and Drum Miniatures or the Hesse-Seewald blog, where proprietor Jim Purky has posted new photographs with more scheduled to appear shortly.

Suffice to say, the Fife and Drum range is really turning into quite an impressive set of figures and equipment every bit as good as, and entirely compatible with, everything produced by Minden Miniatures. When used together, both ranges permit 18th century gamers considerable scope and variation where troop types and uniforms are concerned. It's almost too much good stuff at one time and makes dropping off to sleep in the late evenings just a bit harder what with thoughts of charging AWI dragoons, mounted officers, pontoon trains, and special unit/army deals drifting around the ol' noggin

Comments

Bloggerator said…

I am especially enamoured of the mounted officers and will be laying in a stock here in Alzheim.

Hm, i wonder of it's time for the jolly old DoA to explore the 1770s?

Glad to hear you had a jolly time Stokes.

11:00 PM

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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