A Thank-you to Anthro-Paphburg

Saturday, March 03, 1768

My Dear Prince Henry,

Thank you very much for your recent gift of the finest, smoothest, and most golden of ales that surely must ever have been brewed within the frontiers of Anthro-Paphburg. The Grand Duke Irwin Amadeus II and his fellows have enjoyed it immensely. Alas, The Grand Duchess of Stollen prefers Rieslings, Merlots, and Polish liquors, but one cannot, unfortunately, have everything.

With regard to said ale, the Grand Duke has requested that I convey his sincerest interest in establishing firmer diplomatic and trade relations with your fine country. Should you be agreeable to such eventualities, he has asked me to refer your representatives to the Grand Duchy of Stollen’s Minister of Trade, Herr Rastus-Uwe Georg von Gebogenius an der Pickelhaube.

We hope the Anthro-Paphburg might be amenable to opening trade talks and either sending a trade delegation to Stollen, or receiving our own in your country, headed by Herr Von Gebogenius an der Pickelhaube.

Your Faithful and Most Sincere Servant,

Johannes P. Flickenhoffer
Personal Assistant to the Grand Duke Irwin Amadeus II

Comments

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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