Nutcrackers and No Days. . .

Finally! A couple of nutcrackers in three-cornered hats, most fitting for the Grand Duchy of Stollen, courtesy of some giftshop or other in Williamsburg, Virginia, which embraces and celebrates its colonial history.

Humph! Time for another one of those "no days" that I was going on about a few days ago. Lots going on today here at Stollen Central, including getting the Christmas trees, which we'll decorate tomorrow, and the final date of the year for my band The Indras this evening. Oh, and some final grades to tally and submit for one of my courses. Rats! It doesn't look good for getting to the painting table today. . . unless I feel particularly driven tonight once I am home again. There is, I suppose, always tomorrow morning and afternoon before we decorate the trees and living room in the evening. Oh, wait. The Grand Duchess and I have a childless date for some coffee at a local cafe tomorrow morning, and she's already arranged a babysitter for a couple of hours. Geeze! How did things get so busy so fast?

At least my shopping for gifts is all done save for two or three more small things that will be easy to pick up early next week, so perhaps I can get caught up with painting next week, but there's only a month left in our current painting challenge. The deadline is January 16th, 2012, and I'm not quite at the halfway point with those 60 RSM musketeers. It might be time for a No Day or two next week, so I can hit the painting table hard and wear out some brush bristles. As the old country and western song used to sing, "Make the world go away. . . "

I'm not sure sure how old this particular postcard image of Santa Claus/Father Christmas is, but it's certainly done in a classic style, and I like his kind face, warmed by the lantern light. The wreath of holly around his head is a nice touch too.

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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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