Preparing for the Move. . .

A seasonally appropriate and very pretty, quiet winter photograph of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset (Great Britain) [Thank you, Simon!] that I found online somewhere.

Well Sir, we are in the home stretch and move into our new house on Monday. My classes for the fall term finished yesterday, and I have spent the day here taking two carloads of clothing and various odds and ends we don't wish to repack into boxes over to the house and stowing them in bedroom and hall closets.

Since yours truly will be working with the crew of movers come Monday while the Grand Duchess and Young Master are at work and school respectively, I've also spent some time spotting where the various larger pieces of furniture will go and measuring where my wife's eventual baby grand piano will go when we get around to making that addition. Funny how several hours to oneself to get things done and think quietly without interruption eases and even cheers the spirit. A good day all the way around I think.

More of the same with Part II tomorrow, and Part III on Sunday. The movers arrive at 8:30am Monday morning to do the heavy work, and we'll spend our first night in the house that evening. The Grand Duchess and I have a date for a glass or two of wine by the working fireplace once the Young Master is in bed.

-- Stokes

T-minus Two Days and Counting (Saturday Morning Update). . .

Thank you for the good wishes, men! Yes, as soon as we can in the next few days, we will hang a very pretty (although it is fake and we reuse it each year) red berry wreath inside somewhere prominent, and a real evergreen Christmas wreath on the front door outside. Christmas trees to follow next Saturday once the ground floor (and the Young Master's bedroom) of Totleigh-in-the-Wold is in order. Ok. Enough wasting time. I've got a car full of clothing and odds and ends to deliver, unload, and stow at the house.

-- Stokes

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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