Everywhere you look, it's dragoon, dragoons, dragoons!

Yesterday afternoon, I finished the three 25mm MiniFigs representing Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II, his second in command General Von Maur, and their mounted aide de camp -- the glorious hussar Captain Rudolf-Michael Von Schenker. Two coats of Future floor finish will ensure that my paintwork lasts, and it makes the figures nice and shiny, a look that I am really taking to.

Don’t know why I avoided the glossy look for so long, since I used to love the appearance of Peter Gilder’s glossy figures in photos adorning various old issues of Miniature Wagaming and Military Modeling. Suffice to say, my three figures look great and photos are coming right here. Stay tuned!

Then last night, I moved on to the dragoon regiment sitting on my painting/radio desk, made up of Revell 1/72 Austrian dragoons, drilling tiny holes into each trooper and horse with my pin vise, clipping staples to use as pins, and then pinning each trooper to his mount. A time consuming process, I can assure you! Hopefully, I can finish this arduous process in the next evening or two and cement the two together x 30 because I want to get started with the fun part – painting!

On that note, I’m going to try something a bit different this time – I’ll begin with a coat of Future floor finish over the bare plastic to stiffen the figures, followed by the usual coat of white glue. The black undercoat will follow last of all. My usual thick application of black Liquitex acrylic, which shrinks as it dries, forming a nice skin around the figure. This three tiered process should provide a nice solid base on which the paint can stick. Finally, I’ll be able to paint the little devils!

Once I finish Stollen’s dragoons, then it’s time to paint up a comparably sized force for the Electorate of Zichenau. These figures will be primarily white-coated infantry with different facing colors. The artillery, cavalry, and generals will have more interesting colors for their coats. If all goes well, I should have this stage done by early summer 2007 and a small initial action between the two armies will become a reality. We’ll see how that progresses. But for now, it’s back to the regiment of dragoons!

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 ...

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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