Skip to main content

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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post-Christmas Excitement by Post. . . and a Brief Review

Can't wait to retire to bed this evening with this new arrival!
Earlier this afternoon, Digby Smith's Armies of the Seven Years War arrived with the mail.  A quick glance through the book -- after wrestling it from its Amazon packaging -- shows it to be chock-a-block with information on the various combatants who partook in the conflict, their uniforms, standards, etc.  While I've been aware of Mr. Smith's book for a couple of years, I only got around to purchasing it with some of Mom and Step-Dad's Christmas gift on December 26th.  I cannot wait to examine it more closely later this evening, and might hit the sack right after supper with some fresh coffee and the book, leaving the Grand Duchess and the Young Master to their own devices for the remainder of evening.  Weeeeeell, maybe not quite that early. . .  but all bets are off by 9 or 10pm!



Thursday, January 4th

I just wrote my first review for Amazon.com on this book.  It reads:

A highly interesting title on the v…
6 comments
Read more

Back in the Painting Saddle. . .

It's hard to beat the richness of oil-based metallics.  The Minden mounted colonel that I worked on yesterday evening.  He ought to look pretty good when finished.

I spent a pleasant hour or so last night, following The Young Master's bedtime, carefully teasing tiny bits of Winsor & Newton, or perhaps Grumbacher, gold and silver oils onto the mounted Austrian officer, who will oversee the composite battalion of Minden Austrian grenadiers.  They, of course, are the fellows in the foreground.

Those of you with longer memories might recall that these miniatures have been on the painting table since January.  Real life, however, has meant that progress has been at a standstill since late February.  I even put them away in a box for a couple of months to reduce dust and cat fur build-up!  

However, I managed to get my seat back into the painting chair last night, and here we are.  A steady hand, despite the usual after dinner infusion of strong dark roast coffee, meant only one m…
3 comments
Read more

Stuart Asquith RIP. . .

 The now departed author and hobby personality playing a colonial game in 1978.  No hiding the width of neckties from that era!

Another one of the hobby greats, Stuart Asquith, passed away during the weekend.  While we never met (I am on the wrong side of the Atlantic), I was fortunate enough to exchange a couple of short emails with him 10 or 12 years ago when he was involved with a blog about all things Charge!

Said blog was managed by four or five UK hobbyists during the wave of enthusiasm that followed the 2006 Sittangbad and 2007 Mollwitz refights at Partizan in the U.K. just as hobby and imagination blogging took off in a big way.  Sadly, the blog disappeared pretty quickly, but it was a real blast interacting with Stu even if only briefly and in passing.  He was very personable and humble in his emails to me, expressing surprise that a stranger in the U.S. had an inkling of who he was.

Stu Asquith's writing years ago in Military Modeling, various books, and magazines like Prac…
5 comments
Read more