Marginally neater in appearance with green bases, girths, and ivory horse markings added, but I need to neaten up some hooves now before moving onto the rest of the tack. W here in the world did June go? While I still ponder the answer to that question, how about a quick painting update on the first batch of 14 Minden Austrian hussars and Nadasdy? Good. I'm glad we are of a like mind. Still on the sloppy side, but I've managed to move things along, painting the green bases, white (ivory) horse markings, and beginning the miles and miles of tack adorning the various horses. I always like to begin with the girths spanning the horses' ribs which helped hold the saddles in place. Even with the figures mounted individually on temporary painting bases, these can be kind of tricky to access, but there we are. I've also used various Army Painter washes (Mid-Brown and Strong Tone) as well as their Speed Paint (Grim Black) to make the manes and tails of the horses a bit m...
Here's my last structure for a while until I decide to start on making a few extra bridges for those Table Top Teaser scenarios. It's an East Prussian, er, uh, um, "Stollenian", farmhouse-barn structure. I still need to add the internal balsa "ruins" and reinforce the four posts that support the second story overhang, but this is the basic shell. It's based on the four photographs, culled from the web, that follow, and I'll try to give parts of my farmhouse a similar fachwerk treatment, time, caffeinated painting hand, and tired eyes permitting!
Here's an old farmhouse that's now on the Lithuanian side of the border. I found it, I think, by doing a web search for houses in Lithuania Minor, or something like that. Lithuania Minor (Klein Litauen in German) was that slice of East Prussia where most of the people outside of towns were ethnic Lithuanians and spoke, not suprisingly, Lithuanian or a dialect thereof.
This combination farmhouse-barn is actually in the former West Prussia, present day Northwestern Poland. My model house above resembles it most closely.
Here's another similar house, but this time in present day Northeastern Poland.
And for good measure, here's one more farmhouse of the type I've tried to approximate with my, as yet, unpainted model above. This structure is also in present day Poland, but was once lived in by a German -speaking farm family until 1944 or '45.
Comments
Rob
Take a look in a good grocery store (upscale type) for some "fancy" bamboo toothpicks. They make far better posts than what you're using . . . they have one pointed end and one "filial" end . . . and that is the end for making great posts.
They often come in round plastic dispensers . . . often on cardstock backing. Look in the "kitchen accessories" type section of the store.
Oh, and the photos of the houses are wonderful . . . as is your model.
-- Jeff
Also, that's an excellent project, Professor.