The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Newsflash!  Minden Miniatures is currently working on some SYW-era Prussian mounted generals and dismounted staff.  Although Frank Hammond, the man behind Minden Miniatures, points out that these will not be ready for sale for some time yet (so please don't e-mail Frank to ask him when) , the photographs of the greens are terribly impressive.  Click on the highlighted link above to be magically transported to Frank's blog, where you can ogle these sculpting marvels.  Richard Ansell's best work yet, I'd say.  It looks like I'll have to add some of these to the Grand Duchy of Stollen collection once they become available.

Remember these guys?  These were finished during the late fall of 2010 and have been waiting patiently for their guns to arrive ever since.  Army bureaucracy you know!  The figures are Prussian artillery from Garrison by the way.  A few different things happening here in Stollen Central the last week or so.  First, I have been slowly getting those last two MiniFig guns painted to go with the crew shown above.  Still some cleaning up to do before the usual two coats of glossy varnish, but overall I am fairly well pleased. The barrels of the guns were painted with GW Dwarf Bronze, given a very thin wash of alkyd oil-based Burnt Sienna, and then the bronze was touched up on the upper-most parts of the barrels.  This seems to add a bit more depth, texture, and visual interest to these relatively plain castings, though that is kind of hard to see in the photograph below. So, here are the two MiniFig guns in question.  Not quite there, but just abo...

So there I sat. Minding my own business while the rest of the world slept. That old, faded neon sign outside my window, buzzing loudly, blinked Eat at Joe's , to nothing and no one. No one but me. . .  Gloss E. Varnish. As usual, I painted in a beat up fedora and wrinkled trenchcoat with a glowing Lucky stuck to my lower lip, a nickel-plated heater in the top drawer, and a half-empty bottle of cheap scotch on the desk. I'd made some headway on another batch of Holger Eriksson cavalry, a tough case to crack, and stopped for a swig or two of rot-gut and another smoke. I inhaled deeply, enjoyed the burn, and contemplated a new number three sable round with a good point that I'd bought a few days before.  It was a good night. Suddenly, a shadow fell across my threshold. She was a dark city dame on the lam, trying to escape from a troubled past. And some guy called F.O. Wore, the leader of a new gang of toughs in the city, who were trying to muscle in on the trade.  I gave...

  First, here is a close-up of a trooper and the regimental trumpeter just to illustrate the detail I added (sword knots, stirrups, bits, and bridle buckles). After two months of fairly easy paintwork, which was more fun that I've ever had painting any unit of figures, the HE dragoons are all done, save for a couple of coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish on the second and third squadrons, which I'll apply tomorrow evening.  The painting scheme is, as I've mentioned here before, based on that illustration of the Trumbach Dragoons by Bob Marion in the first volume of Charles Grant's and Phil Olley's Wargaming in History .   Now that I have painted some Holger Eriksson figures and added them to the Grand Duchy of Stollen collection, I understand the charm of these lovely old miniatures.  I've already arranged with the Grand Duchess to have an order sent to our friend in Berlin,which my wife will pick up during a brief trip to Germany and Poland next summ...