Step 5.75 Dark Red Undercoat. . .

Slowly coming together here with the dark red undercoat applied and, where necessary, final dark blue touch-ups to cover any slops and clean up edges adjacent to other colors. . .  Or those areas earmarked for adjacent colors.

Just a quick painting update this morning since domestic duties and concerns call, but most undercoats are just about finished on the 36 Minden Austrian dragoons that have occupied so much of the late spring and summer.  The dark red areas, slated to receive scarlet highlights shortly, have been applied -- as and when time has allowed -- to coat tails, cuffs, and turnbacks.  So too have he black stocks been painted carefully at the bases of the figures' necks.  As if by some miracle, I managed to do that without getting any on the chins or faces! 

After that, a dark brown to those areas earmarked for hair/wigs on the figures, light gray for crossbelts, and tan for the gauntlets.  Then the highlighting can start, otherwise known as 'Step 6.' 

I typically keep things simple and restrict my colors to an undercoat and one highlight.  While complex but subtle highlights and lowlights applied over a base color can be very effective on larger single display figures, I find the three-coat Dallimore process a bit overwrought for 40mm and below, preferring the more subtle undercoat and a single highlight.  Some figure painters are very skilled at the three-step process and produce figures that don't look like Hanna-Barbera technicolor cartoons.  The key, I think, is effective blending.  But some painters, myself included, have difficulty achieving that.  The main thing, of course, is to finish painting those units to a reasonable standard, get 'em based, and onto the table before decrepitude sets in.  Since I am of a certain age at this point, I'd better hurry! 

Returning to the point at hand, we're sadly into August now, and summer's days are numbered, which means that I must use more time to prepare my online course management pages for this fall's crop of students.  The autumn semester begins on September 2nd.  So far, 135 undergrads spread cross three courses, which for the first time are set up as asynchronous online courses, meaning students can more or less complete them on their own time so long as everything is turned in by December 11th, the final day of the term.  Call it a hunch, but I suspect I'll be even busier than usual with student emails, ironing out the inevitable wrinkles, and so forth.  That means, of course, even less time for painting from this point forward, but we'll see how things pan out.  Time permitting, I'll try to get in an hour most evenings.  Keep you fingers crossed!

Thanks, by the way, for previous and very kind notes of support following the news about my mother's declining health a couple of weeks back.  She is still ticking along at home and relatively comfortable all things considered.  We talk on the phone every few days.  She was funny at the end of our conversation yesterday.  Remarking on the hot weather in North Carolina at the moment, she mentioned that a large glass of iced tea with sugar and mint seemed in order, followed by a nap on the large chaise on the patio deck outside while her Yellow Labrador 'Miss Daisy' licked her bare toes.  This is a routine thing between my Ol' Mom her dog apparently.  Ah, yes.  Some things never change.

-- Stokes