Tarleton and Marion in The Road to Guilford. . .

Banastre Tarleton (left) and Francis Marion (right). Figures by Fife&Drum, painted mostly with Winsor & Newton Griffin alkyd oils, some details picked out with Citadel acrylics, and groundwork done with Woodland Scenics.

All good road movies need a duo of sorts. Sarandon and Davis, Gibson and Glover, Martin and Lewis, Hope and Crosby, Abbott and Costello. . . Tarleton and Marion. Just think of the films those two could have made!

Anyway, here they are, freshly glossed and terrained -- Banastre and Francis. Not hyper-detailed, but enough to make me happy, and, most important, they are done. They'll do fine at arm's length on the table. Tarleton will serve as an officer in the Army of Zichenau, and Marion in the Army of Stollen where his dark blue and red-faced coat will fit right in.

-- Stokes

Francis Marion, aka "The Swampfox" up close and personal. You see here how, if things work like they should, the pigment settles in the eye sockets, just below the nose in the philtrum area, and between the lips, obviating the need for shadows and highlighting.

And here is "Bloody Ban" Tarleton all by himself. I am pleased with the way the horsehair crest, sheepskin, and green feathers turned out. No touch-ups required. Sap Green (thinned considerably with Liquin Original) proved to be a nice, rich color for feathers, coat, and saddlecloth without being too dark. However, he suffers from a pronounced overbite if you look closely. Darn it! Should've resisted the urge to pick out his teeth with a breath of white paint on that 000 sable brush.

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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