Time to Quit Fooling Around. . .

The almost finished Hanseatic flags and standard bearers in question. These were the town flags for Bremen (L.) and Elbing (R.). I like them very much, and so borrowed both into my semi-fictitious setting. They strike me as just the thing for a regiment based on the infantry of the period from Hamburg, Bremen, and Luebeck.

I finally got down to business this afternoon and painted two Hanseatic flags, which will, after glossing, join my 60-strong regiment of RSM95 Hanseatic infantry that I completed back in, oh, late 2011 I think. They still need a couple of coats of acrylic gloss, but I'm calling them almost done save for a few final touch-ups.

This (Saturday) evening, I managed to return down here to Zum Stolenkeller, where I assembled two Minden Austrian guns that have been floating around here since 2014 (?) and the two French 8pdr. guns given to me this Christmas by the Grand Duchess. I also glued a number of artillery tools into the hands of several French, but soon to be Lauzun's Legion, gunners. All in all, not a bad way to get back into the painting and modelling chair after too many months away. Onward and upward as they say.

-- Stokes

Sunday Morning. . .

Thank you everyone or your kind comments about the flags above. I typically copy files culled from the web into MS Word, resize, print, cut out, and attach them to flagpoles. Then, I carefully paint in my own colors and try to add some subtle highlights here and there before glossing everything. It is not a fast process by any stretch.

This morning, however, I am fired with enthusiasm, and if I can get through preparations for Monday's class quickly enough, I hope to return to the painting table to tackle another pair of replacement flags that have been sitting around for a year now. Time to get these done! I can then move on, in good conscience, to all of the cavalry waiting in the wings. Yet more painting backlog that should have had considerably more attention during 2017.

Still tinkering with online photo editing tools via Pixlr (Photoshop Elements is better, and I really need to purchase an updated version). This time, I have used Pixlr's 'Sharpen' and 'Denoise' to get a finer, better defined photograph of ol' Fred and his good buddy von Seydlitz.

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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