The Joys of Amazon Giftcards. . .

One of the three sizes of Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor brushes I ordered this afternoon. Should have 'em by the weekend!

There is something nice about sitting on Amazon giftcards for a little while until clarity reveals what one ought to use them for. Such was the case with a remaining Christmas gift from my in-laws this year. I finally put together an order this afternoon to replace a few dried up, or soon to be, bottles of Citadel colors and also selected two of each of my three preferred brush sizes -- #1, #3, and #6 rounds.

These are synthetic bristle brushes intended for watercolorists, but I have long used them for figure painting, and the points usually last long enough for three or four units, depending on the size, before they are relegated to the base-coating and dry-brushing jar. They give me the results I seek and seem to provide a nice compromise between ready availability, durability, and usefulness on the one hand and price on the other. I'll need to replaced my 20 year old 000 sable before long, but honestly I don't rely on it all that much any more, so the matter is not yet too pressing.

In other news, I spent about an hour last night carefully applying oil-based silver paint to bayonets, musket barrels, firelocks, and a few officers' swords with my current #1 round, more dry-brushing a very sparing amount to each item, and the result looks rather nice today if I do say so myself. I'll spare everyone yet another Kodak moment (Remember those?) photographic update until things progress just a bit more though.

-- Stokes

Comments

Independentwargamesgroup said…

A 20 year old sable Stokes? How many hairs does it have left? It must have as many hairs as is on my head and that isnt many. Ive found that I can use cheaper polypropylene brushes for blocking in and painting bases. They are adequate and after a wash with the GW inks I use the best sables I can afford but even with a bit of care they dont last more than a year or so. So well done.

4:13 AM

Der Alte Fritz said…

All of my synthetic brushes seem to split down the middle and then the ends of each new section start to curl, thus I don't use synthetic brushes anymore.

Jim

8:18 AM

Fitz-Badger said…

One advantage I have as a slow painter is it takes longer to wear down brushes. ha ha

My experience with synthetic brushes is similar to Der Alte Fritz's, so I only use them for things like dry-brushing large items, painting on glue for flocking, and painting on gesso for priming.

I was just eyeing some brushes on amazon last night, and saw some of the Cotman brushes show up in the listings. But I didn't end up buying any brushes.

I remember "Kodak moments" and Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" song.

8:15 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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