A Most Enjoyable Zoom Chat. . .

A David Morier painting of a mounted grenadier from the Batthyani Regiment of Dragoons, circa 1748 or so.  I think I may give my officers red breeches and saddlecloths just to distinguish them a bit more from the enlisted men.

Up and at 'em early for a Saturday this morning (6:30am) to join The Virtual Wargames club organized by Phil Olley in the U.K. and presented via Zoom.  Terrific fun to finally see some faces and hear voices of quite a few wargamers whose names and blogs I've known and enjoyed for, in some cases, going on close to 15 years!   I believe this will become a fairly regular meeting of the minds, so if you would like to join in, visit Phil's blog -- Phil's War Cabinet --  and let him know of your interest, so he can send you an invitation and Zoom link as the next meeting approaches.  I feel safe in saying that we had an enjoyable (and very funny) chat all around.

 

It's funny how some things will be just the kick in the seat of the pants that you need sometimes.  After the meeting this morning, I feel (re-) inspired to get moving with the basecoat on these 36 Minden dragoon mounts sitting over on the painting table.  To move things along, I plan to combine the base-coating and undercoating into a single step by mixing tan acrylic paint into a healthy dollop of white acrylic gesso and applying to said steeds.  If that works like I hope, then the oil-based Sepia and Burnt Umber can be applied afterwards, worked around, and wiped off to produce a large body of mostly mid-brown chestnuts with a few bays sprinkled around and one or two greys, which are of course treated a bit differently.  But that's a subject for another post.

I've seen elsewhere online that the Litko base people have restarted production of their laser-cut bases and filling/shipping of orders, albeit at a somewhat reduced capacity given a backlog of orders to complete and reduced staffing at the moment, so a slightly longer turn-around time until orders arrive is to be expected.  Still, that sounds like it might be time to see if I need any additional cavalry-sized bases and possibly send an order, so that I've got them on hand when the time comes for permanent basing once painting and glossing is finished. 

But enough talking about it.  Time to get moving with all of this if I want to get the 36 horses (and riders) finished by August.  The figures won't paint themselves! 

Happy weekend, please look after yourselves everyone, and stay healthy.

-- Stokes