Reelin' and a Rockin'. . . .

Hardly John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but we still enjoyed ourselves immensely! From left to right, Paul, Steve, Kenny, and Stokes -- The Indras.

Yesterday afternoon/evening was pretty successful for our public debut . Unfortunately, we took the stage without our promised soundcheck and were a bit rushed, but our set of six songs went over remarkably well all things considered. The audience, who ranged in age from 3 or 4 to about 65-70, was highly enthusiastic and gave us a good response. There was even some dancin' and jivin' in front of the stage by younger audience members.

Various other acts were on the bill too, all equally talented. Who would think that a bunch of people with advanced degrees, who have made a life of studying, writing, and professing would display such a surprising array of talent? Certainly not our students, many of whom, I would bet, were taken by complete surprise.

Over $300 US was raised for the McLean County Autism Society too, so it was an afternoon well spent. And the student organizers of the faculty/staff variety show were very helpful and professional in they way they ran everything. I'm eager to work with them again next year.

As an added plus, The Indras have some pretty good sounding video of the perfomance (thanks to the Grand Duchess), which we should have up on the band's MySpace page and YouTube in a day or two. So, you'll be able to experience the performance if you'd like. Ok, now let's get back to those RSM Fusiliers!

P.S.

FYI, the following tunes made up our mini set:

Some Other Guy
Honey Don't
Lucille
Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Blue Suede Shoes
Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I'm glad that it went well . . . and I hope that Irwin Amadeus' troops can hold the Sawmill from those most vile of invaders, the Stagonians.

-- Jeff

2:47 PM

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

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...

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 Grand Duchy of Stollen

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