Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all American visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen wherever in the world you might find yourselves. We have a chilly, gray day with falling temperatures here in our neck of the Midwest, the Grand Duchess brought me a H-U-G-E mug of black coffee a short while ago as I yawned and woke up in bed, and we have over an hour until ol' Tom Turkey goes in to oven. Otherwise, it's still in the house at the moment, which is never a bad thing. Happy sigh. It's a good day. And I feel very fortunate indeed.

Between preparing a couple of pies yesterday along with another dish, which I can't quite recall at the moment, I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours work on those Garrison Miniatures Prussian artillery crew, who are actually looking much more like Schaumburg-Lippe artillery crew with their pretty, light blue uniforms. Not much left to do there except for a couple of tiny things, and then its onto my usual two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish. I next must actually order a couple of RSM large guns from the Dayton Painting Consortium for the figures to crew and paint them once they arrive.

Even more exciting, I also began preparing some of those 30 Holger Eriksson dragoons that I purchased, via Peter Johnstone of Spencer Smith Miniatures, during the summer of 2009, for eventual base-coating in the next ten days or so. These are really wonderful little figures. A bit rough around the edges by modern sculpting and casting standards, but they will look mighty fine once painted and deployed on the table.

And since I've got so much blue, white, and red in my tabletop forces for the Grand Duchy of Stollen and its mortal enemy the Electorate of Zichenau already, I have more or less decided to base the uniform for this next batch of figures on that of Prussia's Trumbach Dragoons -- that is, dark green coats, breeches, and saddlecloths with yellow facings and lace. It should speed painting a bit, and I have checked my ancient tin of Humbrol British Rifle Green, which dates from late December 1988 when I purchased it from the old MiniFigs HQ on Graham Road in Southampton, the U.K. I think there is probably just enough solvent pigment left in the tin for one more regiment. Keep your fingers crossed!

So, there you have it. A fairly quiet couple of days here at Stollen Central, but some painting and culinary activity have kept things both interesting and productive. Ah! I see that my coffee needs refilling, so I'll bid you a fond farewell until your next visit the Grand Duchy of Stollen where the Christmas season is just getting underway. I wonder if the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II will remember to purchase a gift for his long suffering manservant Hives this year?