"Vem var Holgar Eriksson?"

Or in English, “Who was Holgar Eriksson?” Well, the internet is a wonderful thing, and several OSW members have come through rapidly with all kinds of information on this masterful figure sculptor, following my query there.

Chief among them is Historifigs’ own Mike Taber, who found and posted a fantastic article written by John Scruby, who visited Mr. Eriksson at his home in Karlstad, Sweden during late 1968. Mike also dug up and posted several photos of H.E. and his work. These can be viewed through the Historifigs website at: www.historifigs.com.

Next to thank is Battlegames’ mastermind Henry Hyde, who sent various web links on H.E. figures and a little history behind them. These may be accessed at the Spencer Smith Miniatures website, which, as you know, is being temporarily hosted by Henry through his Battlegames website. Click here to go there: http://www.battlegames.co.uk/spencersmith/holgereriksson.html. Henry mentioned that he’ll eventually be adding photos of the full Holgar Eriksson figure line to the Spencer Smith website. I can’t wait!

Finally, let’s not forget Murdock, the man behind the Murdock’s Marauders at: http://murdocksmarauders.blogspot.com/, who sent me this link to all kinds of interesting information on wargames, miniatures, and etc. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html.

A heartfelt thank you to all three of you – Mike, Henry, and Murdock! I’ll have lots to look at and read through this weekend. Oh yes, and then of course there’s painting to do too! Worst of all, I’ve got a severe itch now to build up the Electorate of Zichenau’s heavy cavalry regiment using about thirty of the H.E. 30mm figures. Oh the pain, the pain. . .

So, it seems like I hit the mother load this time, and that I’m not quite as out of the loop at OSW as I thought. Or maybe I simply asked the right kind of question? You see? My graduate school research was good for something -- Professors Ingwersen, Brantly, and Thresher would be pleased! ;-)

P.S.

My wife has asked me to thank those of you who sent congratulations and good wishes to her through me, following the arrival of her book earlier this week. She sure appreciated it.

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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