A Quick Post Today. . .

The Grand Duchess and I are talking between Berlin and Bloomington via Skype in just a few minutes, so a quick post is in order. The Garrison Prussian artillery crew samples arrived in the mail earlier this afternoon, and they are wonderful. Their size falls between the Revell plastics and the RSM95s the make up most of the Grand Duchy of Stollen collection, and I will send a full order and payment information to Rob Young at Garrison later today or tomorrow. I'm also treating myself to a regiment of Holger Eriksson cavalry, mentioned a few posts back, and will send the order to Peter Johnstone at Spencer Smith Miniatures later this weekend as well.

Whew! Just finished mowing the grass in the front and back, which, since we have had no rain in the last several days, was a hot, dusty job. But it's all done for another week. Finally, in amongst all of the other "real life" stuff currently vying for time, my band The Indras has landed several paying gigs over the next several months. Find out more by visiting our MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/presentingtheindras.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I hope that you and the Grand Duchess have a good chat.

I sent you my orders for our Charge game last Sunday night . . . did you get them? Any idea when you'll have time to translate them to the table?

-- Jeff

2:45 PM

John Clements said…

I'm very pleased you like the Garrison figures as they have always been favourites of mine and I used them for most of my active gaming in previous years. I sold mine a while back so look forward to seeing yours when painted up.

3:12 PM

Anonymous said…

Stokes,
If you need rain for your grass, I can package some up and send it over from the UK. We've had more than enough of the stuff.

Steve.

3:25 AM

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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