Sachsen-Hildburghausen Infantry Update. . .

Really beginning to come together at this point through more careful (ok, tedious) painting. You know. To remain within the lines.

I've spent about three hours during the last couple of days plugging away at these 19 RSM95 Prussian musketeers. We're getting into that less than exciting multitudinous tiny detail painting territory now. Sigh. This means lots of straight lines: shoulder belts, bayonet scabbard, hair queues, musket stocks, musket straps, gun barrels, etc., etc., etc. You get the idea.

It's funny what goes through your mind as you zone out during the zen of painting, and why it has never occurred to me before now is anyone's guess. But these items all require the careful painting of dashes and lines of various lengths and thicknesses. Not the most exciting part of figure painting in any scale. Still, things are coming together, and I've managed to accomplish quite a bit in short spurts of activity between cooking tasks yesterday and time, more or less, to myself today although the Young Master and I did have an extremely pleasant father-son walk around the neighborhood late this afternoon for an hour or so before supper.

Still lots of other minute details to take care of, but my version of the Sachsen-Hildburghausen contingent that was part of the larger Ernestine Sachsen Regiment is beginning to come alive. Visually speaking that is!

-- Stokes

Came across this new image of the Sachsen-Hildburghausen Regiment, ca. 1753, this afternoon during a break in painting. He looks rather different from the figure shown below on which I have based my painting.

And here, again, is the illustration I have used as a guide in the painting of my figures.

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

Search This Blog