Sachsen-Hildburghausen Contingent Almost Finished. . .

Here is where the current batch of figures stands.  Not brightened at all to avoid blitzing the raised areas and other details.  Still not as good a photograph as some that I've taken in the past with my lightbox, but it is a work-in-progress picture after all.

Well, Sir. . .  I took the Friday afternoon off from article writing and made a real push to address a bunch of small details on my version of the Sachesen-Hildburghausen contingent that was part of the Ernestine Sachsen Regiment.  A few tiny touch-ups still to do.  I also see, much to my chagrin, that the eight musketeers in the middle distance still need their white shirt cuffs painted in, darn it!  This evening after the Young Master's bedtime then.

In other hobby news, I received a bunch of laser cut bases by Litko in the mail today, so the next thing to do after the figures above get their gloss varnish and are based up with the rest o the 80-igure regiment, is to begin preparing 10 or 12 Minden/Fife & Drum Prussian and Austrian gun limbers, riders, and 40-48 limber horses for basing and base-coating.  This should be fun and round out my various two-gun batteries and crews nicely.  I've also go a few ideas for additional horse colors to keep things from getting too dull.  You know.  You've got to beat the Tedium Demon at his own game.  Hmmm. . .  That sounds like a line from an old Motorhead tune.  It should have been on Side B of the No Sleep Till Hammersmith live album.

In the same package, were a bunch of amorphous "terrain bases" of various sizes, to which I'll eventually affix my large collection of 5" cake decoration trees (72 of 'em for about US$5.99 if memory serves me correctly) after slapping on a couple of coats of medium dark green latex paint.  This will make more sense when I post a few photographs of the finished items at month's end, but the idea is to have a bunch of wooded bases that can represent everything from lines of trees and small thickets to larger copses, medium sized woods, and even extensive forest areas without to much trouble.  What I envision is something similar to the two-three tree bases that show up in old photographs of Charles Grant Sr.'s games, but modified a bit to reflect my own thinking about demarcating wooded areas in a somewhat more realistic way on the wargaming table.

-- Stokes