Five Down and One to Go. . .

Here's where things stand as of late Wednesday afternoon.

Hmmm. I need to be careful. Otherwise, I might actually tick a few things off the long-term painting "To Do" list. As usual with the ground work, I've tried to suggest minor roads, tracks really, somewhere in region of historic Courland where the Grand Duchy of Stollen is supposed to be located.

As usual, the bases were treated with sand that the long-haired, much younger me collected from my maternal grandmother's creekbed in the summer of 1984, which was then stained with a thin wash of Raw Umber acrylic paint and a flow aid. Then came the Woodland Scenics ground foam rubber, tacked down with acrylic matt medium, along with a few judicious clumps of foliage material held in place by careful drops of Gorilla Superglue. Funny how terraining the bases, even a tiny bit, really pulls everything together and helps the figures and equipment to look well and truly finished. Seems to bring everything to life in other words. Contented sigh.

Time now to paint that team of four horses lurking in the back row plus a few Minden drivers, for the items shown here and a couple of previously completed wagons from last summer, that are still waiting for their drivers.

-- Stokes

Comments

Unknown said…

Hi Stokes,
They do look very good and you have also convinced me to add more detail to my bases when the time comes.
Yours ever,
Simon

4:56 PM

marinergrim said…

They look very good indeed. love those barrels.

1:19 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you, men! Painting equipment like this is a pain sometimes, but once finished, it's worth it.

-- Stokes

9:08 AM

Peter Douglas said…

Stokes
The bases look great - I've taken tips. However I must call you on a couple of points
"long-haired, much younger me collected from my maternal grandmother's creekbed in the summer of 1984"
By my calculation given your recent 29th birthday, you must have been in utero or maybe even not even a gleam in your father's eye.
Also a dapper lad like you with long hair? Fine for a barbarian like who was a lad in the hairy 70s, but not for such a style icon as yourself!!

Cheers
PD

1:28 PM

Stryker said…

They do look truly superb but how will they fit with the old school basing of your other forces - or are they for a separate project?

2:43 PM

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

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