Musket Detailing. . .

After several [shorter] sessions -- three or four? -- in the painting chair today, the musket detailing is finished. Brass fittings, trigger guards, firelocks, highlighted [musket] straps, and the ramrods in gun metal on the underside of the stocks. Yes, I realize my head should be examined because no one will ever notice them. But I know they are there.

One more easy session this evening to tone down the shako plates with an Army Painter wash, which will also bring out some of the detailing, but then I'll call it a day. The old eyes are tired, and it has been a pretty good day's work with a minimum of mistakes to correct. Nice when that happens.

Tomorrow (Sunday), I'll start the scabbard belts and possibly the brass detailing on the scabbards. There is quite a bit on the Minden figures, and I'll naturally want to suggest the presence of some on the slightly less detailed RSM95 figures in firing position.

-- Stokes

A Sunday Morning P.S.

The painting muse was still with me last night as I wrapped up the work on musket detailing, so I squeezed a few drops of Army Painter 'Basilisk Brown' (really a dull yellow) onto my palette paper and got to work applying the facing color to just three figures in the back row. You know, just to see how that particular step might go. Pleased with the results. Cuffs and collars look good, so I'll finish the rest later this morning after another mug of coffee and getting dressed for the day.

At the moment (9:35am), still in my pajamas enjoying a first mug of my dark mistress with the cats nearby you understand. A lovely, sunny day blooming outside. Birds singing and other early spring activity happening. And while I could do with another month or so of skiable snow -- There are places out west in the Rockies and Cascades where the ski season lasts for five and six months! -- springtime ain't too bad either.

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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

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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