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Plugging Away in the Grand Duchy

Not much happening in the Grand Duchy if Stollen recently. I’m still working at brushing on thick coats of the artists’ gesso on the 30 stollenian dragoons. Hopefully, I’ll finish with that particular task later this afternoon.

Painting on the basecoat with a large brush is terribly BORING, but it’s much more thorough and effective, in my experience, than spraying on a basecoat. I tried spraying basecoats on my 15mm Napoleonics a few times many years ago and was not pleased with the patchy coverage. I think I actually spent more time going back over the figures later with a brush and white basecoat, making sure all bare areas of metal were covered before true painting could begin.

On the same note, I’ve looked at the Plasti-Dip website and will give that particular product a try for the next batch of plastic figures I paint following the dragoons and the lovely RSM 95 grenadiers that the fair Grand Duchess Sonja presented to me for Christmas.

Finally, I built the FINAL (honest) hanseatic merchant’s townhouse structure over the last couple of days. Pictures will follow after painting, but basically it’s a row of three townhouses, each with a differently shaped gabled end. The third house butts up flush against the main structure (houses one and two), but it can stand alone, while houses one and two are actually a single structure that will be painted as two different houses. This description is kind of confusing, but photos will make everything clear.

Like my previous buildings, these stand on bases with balsa and cork chip “ruins” underneath, to represent destroyed buildings. I think that I’ve got enough buildings now to represent a single large town and small farm, a couple of smaller towns, or several small villages. Plenty of interesting old-school real estate to contest on the wargaming table in fact.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. The Saturday following Christmas, two boxes of Zvezda fir trees arrived from the Michigan Toy Soldier company. Together, they provide enough parts to snap together about two dozen evergreen trees that look remarkably like those used by Charles Grant Sr. in all those years ago in his various books and articles. If you desire an “Old School” look for your table-top forests and parks, I can recommend these tree sets firmly!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…
Stokes,

I've always liked those trees from "The War Game" . . . but I've never seen any for sale.

Please provide some pictures and the address, etc. of where you got them when you can.


-- Jeff
Anonymous said…
Stokes,

Interesting comment about the basing spray. Do you recall the make of the spray?
Anonymous said…
I find undercoating relaxing. Big brush sloppy paintwork and not worried about the mess.

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