A Little Saturday Afternoon Painting. . .

Two shots of the latest painting progress. The riders, horses, and limbers are about done. Just lots of harnesses and a hint of traces to wash in dark brown now along with girths and stirrup leathers followed by a couple of coats of gloss varnish and then the groundwork.

A couple of pleasant hours painting during the early afternoon today as the Young Master played nearby and occasionally wandered over to see what in the heck ol' Dad was up to. Only eight days left in July. Yikes! I'd better get cracking on these if I hope to make inroads on the six corresponding Prussian limbers, teams, and riders by mid-August. Just a little over a month from now, and the fall semester starts. Sigh.

A word on the brass buttons. I think, after many years attempting buttons, that I've finally worked it out. Use fairly small brush with a good point, like a #1 round, and barely touch the drop of paint to the raise areas on each casting. If you have not indulged in too much caffeine that day, the buttons will be highlighted by the barest hint of metallic color. I used acrylic hobby paint here, but dryer, stiffer oil colors would make this step even easier. I have also used the latter to do buttons in the past with equally pleasing results.

-- Stokes

Comments

Wellington Man said…

Painting draught horses is strangely soothing, is it not?

Top tip on the buttons. Regards, WM

3:34 PM

The Good Soldier Svjek said…

Read somewhere lately about using the pointed end of a cocktail stick to paint buttons, you jab the stick into the paint and touch the desired area - I have not tried it myself. Tony

4:00 PM

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...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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