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Dragoon Horses Coming to Your Emotional Rescue!

After a couple of days worth of extensive work, the bright bay horses of Squadron A are nearing completion. All that remains are the white blazes on the muzzles, and socks/stockings on some of the legs, save Colonel Von Cranz at left, who's mounted "on a fine Arab charrrr-ggger", which is all done.

The brown on all of the other horses is Grumbacher's "English Red" artist's oil color. Yes, "that" tube given to me by good 'ol Mom about 23 years ago! Takes a couple of days for this particular color to dry to the touch. Pretty rapid for an oil-based color when you think of it. I have used and loved this color for bays and chestnuts for many, many years. It covers extremely well, and it takes only a tiny daub of paint on the palette to color many horses.

I used a #2 synthetic round brush to apply the color to each horse. Slightly small for such a large painting job, but it enabled me to work the color around things like black reins, harnesses, and other details fairly easily, leaving a very thin black line to offset various tiny details and other colors already applied. And guess what? Almost no mistakes to fix. Things like that don't happen too often here in the Grand Duchy of Stollen!

Oh, I've also managed to complete a number of other smaller details, using GW, Poly S, and Ral Partha acylics since the last update, but most are invisible to the eye here. You can see that the drummer's drum is complete however. Next up are the following details:

1) Yellow collars on the red coats
2) Musket stocks and barrels
3) Swords, sword pommels, and scabbards
4) Stirrups and stirrup leathers
5) The "girths" (the large, heavy strap that secures a saddle) across each horse's chest
6) White Crossbelts, waistbelts, and valise straps
7) Then they're done, and it's time to move onto the next group of nine figures -- Squadron B

I've decided to get all 30 figures painted before I varnish them with Future acylic floor polish. Will probably let them sit for a week or so (for the oil to dry out) and move onto the RSM grenadiers in the meantime. Sigh. A wargamng geek's work is never done. But at least the Grand Duchess Sonja will always know where I am. . . sequestered away in the "The Purple Room"!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I do like those horses, and they are in such dynamic poses. I'm looking forward to seeing the regiment when it's completely finished!

Best wishes

Giles
10:22 AM
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