Getting There -- Slowly, But Surely

Happy Monday! No school for me today since Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is honored in Illinois, so I’m enjoying a large mug of coffee and listening to RDP Radio Portugal (in Portuguese) on my big, old Grundig Satelit 650 shortwave radio at the moment. Best of all, there’s a massive snowstorm headed directly our way from which we could accumulate as much as 8” of new snow by Tuesday evening. So, it looks like it’s time for me to apply another coat of glide wax to our skis in anticipation!

I painted lots of smaller things on the latest squadron of dragoons yesterday afternoon, and during a second session in the evening. Except for the metallic colors (swords, musket barrels, et al), which I envision taking about an hour, the troopers and officer are all finished. The big job now is to get the brown Grumbacher “English Red” applied to the horses. It usually takes about an hour to paint 4-5 horses because I work the paint carefully around all of the reins and harnesses, which I leave black. So, figure about two hours for nine horses. So, shall we say about three hours of work remaining?

I’ll have to let the oil color on the horses dry for a couple of days before I paint the white markings on muzzles and legs, so I’ll turn my attention to the third and final squadron. Here, I must apply the black undercoat before I can proceed with normal painting. The acrylic gesso was applied a few weeks ago, and I only applied black undercoat to two of the three squadrons before beginning with the “real” painting. Oh, hang on. Portugal has gone off. Time to retune the radio. Ok, now I’ve got the ABC via Radio Australia.

Anyway, it’s been fun to see how quickly a “large” regiment of cavalry has progressed when painted in batches. Prior to beginning, I feared it would take three months to get this 30 strong dragoon regiment painted. There are 30 men AND 30 horses to paint after all! It now seems to me that it makes much more sense to paint large units in sections rather than my earlier method of painting ALL faces, for example, in one go. The former approach seems to provide more rapid visual progress. At any rate, finishing the current project before the end of February seems like a distinct possibility.

On another note, I see that I’ve written more than 66 pages since starting my fictitious 18^th century journal about 14 months ago, in December 2005. It corresponds very roughly to The Grand Duchy of Stollen 1768 blog, although I have not posted everything from the journal here. Conversely, I have written a number of postings directly into the blog that do not have counterpart entries in the journal. Still, it’s interesting and fun to look through all of the thoughts and ideas that this “imaginary” project has generated in each place.

Lately, I must admit to delusional daydreams about the possibility of some kind of book about my “take” on the hobby and how to do it my way. But then I think, “Come on, there isn’t that huge a market for this kind of thing. How would you interest a publisher? And besides, how could you do it better than Young or Grant?” Potential challenges and problems aside, it seems like a neat idea from time to time.

Finally, there’s a neat painting contest going on over at the CAMRA, SOSAC, & Olmec Derision Society discussion board right now -- The Golden Grenadier Painting Competition. The competition involves painting a single, correctly proportioned figure to completion and submitting a photo of said model for judgment on or before March 01, 2007. Complete rules can be viewed in the “files” section of the discussion board. Looks like it will be a lot of fun. And the award is a “cyber” certificate with cool graphics, which might look impressive if printed, framed, and hung on the winner’s wall. For more information, please visit:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/CAMRA_SOSAC_Olmec_Derision_Society/

Hope to see you there!