Suren Suttleresses in Progress. . .

The three ladies in question, currently under the brush.

All of the various bits and pieces of my pontoon and supply train have been finished except for the remaining groundwork for that red caisson and it's four-horse team. Watch for some Kodak moments here in the coming days.

Otherwise I'm taking a small diversion during the long Thanksgiving Weekend and painting up a few of those Willie (Suren) female figures ordered last spring, along with a small supply and provisions tent and table -- plus various bits of sustenance and a few trunks, crates, and barrels -- before moving onto the Minden pontooniers in the background and then that 80-figure composite regiment of RSM95 infantry, which will be painted up as a unit of Ernestine Sachsen infantry and a conjectured battle flag.

Anyway, I am basing the colors of the attire worn by the three suttleresses above on the following painting of Frederick II exchanging some sore of interaction with, presumably, Prussian peasants.

So far, so good. The painting on the one test figure in the middle went quickly, and the Willie figures really lend themselves to painting with thin washes and stains. Lots of deep folds for the runny pigments to settle into I might even be able to wrap up the other two gals this evening after supper and the Young Master's bedtime. Tune in again tomorrow for an update.

-- Stokes

Frederick II talks to potato growers, the painting I am using as a guide for the colors of the suttleresses shown above. I can just imagine ol' Fritz speaking to the farmers and field hands in some variety of Low German, since I believe I have read somewhere that he detested the German language in general and preferred French. Perhaps, I'm wrong.

Comments

Unknown said…

I think they'll look tremendous when finished and old master pieces are such a good idea for inspiration. I do the same for ADCs.

Simon

4:40 PM

Mad Padre said…

That must have been an awkward conversation.
"And that, is that a potato?"
"Yes, sire."
"And they grow like that, just on the ground?"
"Yes, sire, pretty much."
"Amazing And how long have you been a potato farmer?"
"All my life, sire"
"Ah. You must enjoy the work, then."

Those three ladies look very ... buxom. Nice figures.

12:17 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

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...

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 Grand Duchy of Stollen

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