Dragoon Painting About to Begin

Things have been quiet here at Stollen Central for the last week or so sonce our return from nordic skiing. But I have finally glued the 30 Revell 1/72 Austrian dragoons to their steeds and glued all the horses to temporary card bases, so I won’t mess up any painting during the next few weeks. If all goes well this evening, I’ll start base coating the whole lot with a new type of undercoat – Liquitex artists’ acrylic gesso.

Normally, gesso is used by artists to treat “raw” canvas prior to painting it. However, I read somewhere online that some plastic soldier enthusiasts use it to prime their figures. As it says on the bottle, gesso provides superior “tooth”, so that paint sticks to it really well. Once dry, it remains flexible, which should prevent any paint from flaking off swords, scabbards, flagpoles, and the like. I’ll let you know how it goes.

On another note, I’ve had such wonderful feedback from many of you recently that I thought I’d (re)share some of your remarks left here plus a few from The Miniatures Page,the CAMRA, SOSAC, and Olmec Derision Society, and the OSW discussion boards. Enjoy!

"Your blog looks great. I will check back to it often." Norris (Dwarfman)

“Nice little site…and I love Stollen…the food that is… Great little site!” -- Murphy

“I love the concept and . . . I am seriously thinking of following suit and starting my own fictional state and army, probably using Marlburian figures instead of SYW though. Quite inspirational, thanks for sharing.” – Mongrel 1

“Really charming; I particularly like the way the buildings lift off and you have ruins there. Very clever.” – Neotacha

“Much inspired by the construction. Good stuff.” – John B

“Very nicely done.” – Snickering Corpses

“I'm getting very impressed by your efforts. . . by all means, keep going with it . . . and I certainly would like to read an article about how you built all of these buildings.” – Bluebear Jeff

“Your written exploits have begun to start some similar urges of my own!” -- Murdock

“Great work by the way! I wish I was half as productive.” -- Moif

“Great job on keeping the blog updated. The buildings are excellent also.” -- Poruchik

“Those buildings will look pretty cool. Do you have templates for them that you can post?” -- Miniwargamer

“Stokes - what a fine paint job. The whole army looks very cleanly done indeed. Marvellous!” -- Bloggerator

“Excellent work. Give the architect a payrise.” -- Grimsby Mariner

“It's fun seeing how inspired other people are with their Old School projects. I can tell that you are having a lot of fun with the Grand Duchy of Stollen.” -- Altefritz1740

“Very lovely indeed, Stokes -- the epitome of Old School!” -- Henry

It’s funny, but a little encouragement from like-minded individuals really makes it easy to keep moving forward with a fairly lengthy project -- like this one. Thanks men, and keep coming back. It’s getting better all the time -- with apoligies to one Mr. McCartney. ;-)

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...

Bluebear Jeff said…

I hope that both you and your lovely Grand Duchess had a wonderful ski holiday.

Now that you've returned, I look forward to viewing some of your soon to be mustered troops.

-- Jeff

7:06 PM

Anonymous said…

So what were the logistical implications of moving 18th cent armies through snow then? what do you mean you were having too much fun relaxing with your lovely wife to think about wargaming?

Hope you had a great time.

2:01 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you both! Yes, our skiing holiday was wonderful -- not long enough -- but great fun all the same. I only wish we could do it again soon, but life always seems to interfere. Sigh. Anyway, school starts again next week, so it's back to reality. However, I did manage to begin base coating the stollenian dragoons last night. The gesso seems to work very well as a base. We'll see how things go once I begin proper painting.

Best Regards,

Stokes

9:22 AM

I'm actually using a product called Plasti-Dip as a base coat currently, which at first glance seems to be doing decently well. I'm regretting having bought the spray version instead of the dip version, however. I think I'm realizing the dip would probably be much easier to use in the long run even though it requires more effort, in theory, in the actual application.

6:15 AM

One caveat I'd mention on the Plasti-Dip, at least the spray, is that you don't want any part of the figures touching another surface while the Plasti-Dip is drying. If the Plasti-Dip solidifies against another surface, it may pull away when you pull the figure loose from that other surface. Ideally, you want to be able to suspend them in the air I think. I'm currently trying to test out the best way of doing this with the spray.

4:41 AM

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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