I hope you've all been good!

And I hope none of you might be expecting a lump of coal in your stocking, or a Birch switch come Christmas morning. ;-) With a certain man's visit to good boys and girls around the world fast approaching, and I have it on good authority that the reindeer have been particularly frisky the last several days or so, here is yet another classic image of Saint Nicholas for your seasonal enjoyment.

For those of you with a more painterly frame of mind, I can report that I did get in about two hours last night to apply a couple of coats of Future/Klear to some more finished fusiliers. I also painted a bunch of bases green and applied flesh to a dozen more faces and twenty-four more hands. Christmas Day and a family visit not withstanding, I plan to slip into high gear with painting, finishing the Action at Pickelhaubewicz with Jonathan, and working some more on my languishing book project in the next week.

Finally, here is a better photograph of the Grand Duchess and me this past Saturday when we played hooky and went skiing in Wisconsin. It was a glorious day!

Comments

DestoFante said…

Stokes,
next time you drove through Chicago, we should arrange to get a coffee together!
I will have quite some traveling over the holidays, from family-in-Florida to family-in-Italy, so I'm afraid there won't be much painting progress for me for a couple of weeks. Good for you!

11:06 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Aha! My sharp eyes have detected the name of the author on a couple of those books that "the Man in Red" is carrying.

The author's name? Why Charles Grant, of course.

May you and your lovely Grand Duchess enjoy a wonderful Christmas Week.

-- Jeff

11:42 AM

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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