The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  Nicer lighting and some additional progress!    A bout an hour in the painting chair early this morning and 45 minutes or so this evening after The Young Master's bedtime.  Still rough around the edges, but coming along rather nicely.  I think I'll tackle the browns tomorrow evening. -- Stokes

Not much to look at so far, and I've violated my "Fleshtone First" step, but I am very pleased with the Charcoal Gray highlight on the black areas.  Not too much, but just enough difference from the straight black. A wee bit of painting progress the last week or so on the first platoon of eight privates, a few drummers, and a couple of officers. This time around, I am playing with the order in which I do things and trying to resist the urge to apply too much highlight color to the blacks, blues, and reds.    On that note, I've found a very nice dark 'Charcoal Gray' acrylic that seems to provide just the perfect highlight for black leather and cloth of various kinds.  Less silvery than the Zinc used in the past.  See what you think.  On the technical end of things, I've been using larger #4 round brushes for much of the painting so far.  Another one with a not so good point and a new one with a very good point where more precision is called for.   Anyon

These should keep me busy for the next couple of months.   W hile work outside mowing, preparing flowerbeds for the summer, and creating Doodly whiteboard animations for use with my courses next fall have kept me busy since the last post, I have managed to get the next infantry regiment fixed to their temporary bases for base-coating and painting.   And I'm trying something a bit different this time around. You'll notice that most of the figures have been staggered eight to a base.  Indeed, I plan to work on batches of eight to (almost) completion this time around for most of the unit.   You know.  It's just one of those psychological games we play with ourselves to get through a lot of figures in one go.  We'll see how things progress. -- Stokes   Later. . . A question in the comments section on my possible plans for light infantry formations in the future.  Well, in fact, I already have a battalion of jaeger  (Holger Eriksoon figures painted by John Preece, which were

The 45-strong regiment arrayed for review, complete with a third rank.  I have never attempted a cavalry regiment this large.  Three, count 'em, three squadrons plus a colonel and trumpeter. A re finished!   A fter two days of acrylic glossing as and when time allowed plus a few tiny, tiny touch-ups this morning, my version of Austria's Batthyanyi Dragoons is all done at long last.  Minden figures and horses of course, painted mostly with acrylics, but the horses were done mostly with oils over acrylic undercoats.  Tans and yellows if memory serves.  The various greys were an exception however and were painted entirely with acrylics.   Everything was finished with two coats of Liquitex high gloss acrylic varnish because just a single coat is never enough of course.  A time consuming final step, but well worth the effort I think.  Voilà . . .  Glossy toy soldiers, baby! I won't win any awards for speed-painting with these.  Clearly, I was a model ship builder or model railro