Der Stollen ist da! / We've got Stollen!

Here's the finished product with a fresh pot of coffee all ready to go.

The Grand Duchess, despite a small cold, whipped up a stollen for us late this afternoon, and the Young Master helped her for the first time. So, I think this year's stollen will taste extra specially good this year.

Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog might recall that the name for this ongoing project came to me in mid-December 2005 one afternoon in our old apartment a few blocks away from the current Stollen Central. The semester was over, final grades had been submitted, and there was finally time for daydreaming and note-making for a then as yet unamed fictitious mid-18th century campaign in the tradition of The War Game and Charge!

I mulled over everything at my desk as the Grand Duchess baked our very first stollen right across the hall in the kitchen, wondering what I might call the project. Suddenly, it hit me. The Grand Duchy of Stollen. . . Yes, that's it! And here we are. Eight years and close to 1000 25-30mm painted figures later. Christmas can come along now. We've got stollen in the kitchen, and I feel ready for anything.

A few minutes before, the Young Master and Grand Duchess applied melted butter before dusting heavily with Vanilla Sugar.

And finally, the Young Master and Grand Duchess applied the heavy dusting of the Vanilla Sugar.

Comments

marinergrim said…

A very warm and Merry Christmas to you sir. My wife makes fruit loaf and walnut bread just before the big day. It's never Christmas until then.

8:33 AM

Fitz-Badger said…

Always sounds yummy.

7:04 PM

Mad Padre said…

Mmmm, stollen. Madame Padre and I cheated and purchased a stollen from a Euro deli store here in town. I'm sure the Duchess' will be much finer.
A very happy Christmas to all in the Duchy from Canada.
Michael

11:17 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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