Der Liebhaber Award. . .

'Liebster' means, in German, something like 'favorite' in translation.

Actually, it's a 'Liebster' award rather than 'Liebhaber,' which has an altogether different set of connotations!  Just a bit of delusional orthographic tomfoolery here this morning.  ;-)

Anyway, thanks to Neil, the man behind the blog Toy Soldiers and Dining Room Battles, and Peter at The Singlehanded Admiral blog for nominating the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog to join the growing ranks of fellow Liebters out there in Internetlandia.  The rules of the Leibster Blog Award are as follows:  


1. Copy and paste the award on your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.  Done (see above)!

2. Pass the award to your top 5 favorite blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.

3. Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day!

That done, here are my nominees for the Liebster Blog Award:

1) The Duchy of Alzheim.   This is one of the first blogs I stumbled onto in late 2005 and which has been a source of semi-imaginary 18th century inspiration ever since although its owner the enigmatic Mr. H., who doubles as my occasional tabletop opponent, the notorious General Phillipe de Latte, sometimes ventures into other projects and periods.  In any case, it is always fun to visit the Duchy of Alzheim.

2) Flanderkin Serjeant.  Although this blog has been fairly quiet in 2012, it's owner Mr. John P. has had all kinds of interesting observations about the correct color of Bavarian infantry uniforms, painting, and figure conversion.  This blog has had a considerable influence on my own modified approach to painting miniatures during the last couple of years.

3) Joy and Forgetfulness.  A well-written, entertaining, and sometimes hilariously funny wargaming blog written by one Conrad Kinch, noted wargamer, pipe-smoker, author, and legal scholar.  His wargaming-related scribblings have appeared, among other places, in Battlegames and the sadly defunct Classic Wargamer's Journal.

4) Classic Wargaming.  This blog is by noted wargaming personality Phil Olley and concerns all things Charge!  Fantastic brushwork, thought-provoking commentary and observations, plus interesting tidbits about wargaming in the classic style during the (imaginary) 18th century.  One more of my routine internet touchstones.

5) Doug Mason's Figures.  If you've been wargaming since at least the late 1980s, this man's name will already be very familiar to you.  Wonderful painting and conversion work on, primarily, Napoleonic 25-30mm figures.  Mr. Mason's brushwork is one more huge influence on my own painting, and I've admired his figures since I first saw them in the early 1980s.  Sometimes there is noting better than sitting down in the evening with several old issues of Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated to peruse photographs of Mr. Mason's figures marching across the table at Peter Gilder's Wargames Holiday Centre.

 

Honorable Mentions: 

Unfashionably Shiny.  Figures painted in bold colors, lots of blacklining, and glossy varnish.  Right up my alley!  And there are also sometimes interesting bits of wargaming history that show up here too.  Check it out! 

One Man and His Brushes.  Another blog dedicated to figure painting and conversion.  Highly impressive and inspiring, this is one more that I follow, so that new posts crop up in my blog feed and I don't miss anything.

An illustration of an 18th century initiation into the Freemasonry.