The Hospital of the Holy Spirit Takes Firmer Shape. . .

Here is where things stand at the moment with the front half of the hospital model.

Still whittling away at the mid-18th century Baltic German town center. Balsa chimneys, a few more dormers, and some stairways were added to most buildings over the weekend. I've also worked out how to approximate the actual facade of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit as you'll observe above. I'll never sneer at the scrapbooking and crafting set again. There are many good videos by them on Youtube about how to make paper cones. Now, all I need to do is figure out how to approximate the hexagonal cupola at the base of the middle, slightly more slender and taller spire. I also manage to find a shade o acrylic craft paint last week that should nicely approximate the verdigris of aged copper if I tone it down a bit with some light tan before applying it to the model above as well as the spire on my rathaus as featured in a previous post last week.

The bases of the two outside towers also need a bit of, well, buttressing before everything is finished, and I need to plug a few gaps with some acrylic spackling/filler compound as the late Ian Weekley used to do on his models. Just about ready, then, to begin painting the dozen -- Yes, one dozen! -- town center buildings once this particular structure is done. I got to ten, you know, and it just seemed to make sense to add a couple off plainer houses to make an even dozen just for a bit of variety along the skyline. Still trying to come up with a name for the town that reflects the German-Polish-Lithuanian nature of the area in which it, and indeed the entire Grand Duchy of Stollen campaign area, is supposed to be located.

Stay tuned or further developments!

-- Stokes

Here is my point of reference, the actual structure in Lübeck, Germany, which dates from the 1200s I believe. I am sorely tempted to add the rest of the complex (not shown here) at a later point since I've come across a couple of rather nicely detailed plans of the actual hospital online.

One view of the town center, showing one permutation of the various buildings that I've cobbled together during the last two weeks.

And the same, seen from another angle, showing the stairways that I've attached to the rathaus and one of the two most recent structures at the upper right o the photograph. The other house at the let center also features a low starway on its front, which can't been seen here.

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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