The Rathaus In-Progress. . .

The Rathaus in-progress. . .

Spent about an hour this morning working on the spire that sits atop my rathaus, and I must say I am pleased. Again, it is far from perfect, and later painting will help hide some problem areas, but for a non-professional modeller, it's not bad.

My modelling skills don't allow me to reproduce a more ornate spire that resembles the late Baroque types like you'll across the North of Germany and along other stretches of the Baltic coast, so this seems like a reasonable compromise. This particular spire though, in my own defense, is not unlike some of the tall, slender prototypes that you'll see in Copenhagen, Riga, or other Baltic cities, so it works for me. The Grand Duchy of Stollen, prior to disappearing from the maps in the third Partition of Poland, was in the neighbrhood of The Duchy of Courland after all.

Coming back to real life for just a moment, there are just a few small touch-ups to the rathaus to take care of tomorrow once The Young Master has headed off to school, and then I can turn my attention to redoing a mansard roof that did not turn out as well as I hoped late this afternoon. Blast! Well, everything has gone so swimmingly up to this point that there was bound to be something that didn't quite work out as planned and hoped, right?

But it's time to wrap things up for today. I'm tired and have caught the cold that The Young Master brought home at the end of last week, so an early bedtime this evening for Mr. Excitement. We live out here on the bloody edge at Totleigh-in-the-Wold.

-- Stokes

Comments

marinergrim said…

Very nice work Stokes. I like that a lot.

1:39 AM

Stryker said…

That looks like an excellent bit of 'spire' modelling to me! Can't wait to see these painted up.

5:04 AM

Wellington Man said…

I'm in awe of your modelling skills, Stokes. Those look fantastic. I cannot even imagine how you achieved that magnificent spire.

5:50 AM

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

Search This Blog