Command Vignettes Phase II. . .

More Minden Prussians, Austrians, Fife & Drum, and RSM95 officers along with a couple of large French 4pdrs also by Fife & Drum.

Alrighty then. Time to overcome the summertime, post-vacation lethargy and get my you-know-what back to the painting desk this evening for two hours, following supper and the Young Master's bedtime. On tap for the planned painting session, a basecoat of white artists' acrylic gesso for the Fife & Drum cannon in the forefront and a start on detailing the Prussian cuirassier and dragoon officers at the far left of the photograph.

Once these have been completed, during the next several days I hope, I'll begin working methodically through the vignettes of Prussian and AWI officers in the middle row before moving on to the Austrians and blacksmith vignette in the rear row. I've decided to paint at least some of the Austrians as Polish-Saxon officers in red or crimson, you know, just to keep things interesting and moving forward. This should take me well into August and the start of yet another academic year. Sigh.

The two out-of-focus packets that you might notice to the left of the bottles and tines of paints in the far rear of today's picture contain Minden laborers and French artillery crew, all of whom are destined to be painted as a large company of generic sappers/miners/pontooniers, augmented with a few civilians, who will serve either the Stollenian, or Zichenauer army as necessary. These are the planned project for September and October, once things have calmed down a few weeks into autumn semester. By that time, I will hopefully have begged and cajoled some of the new Fife & Drum powder and pontoon wagons, along with horse teams and drivers, from my wife, the Grand Duchess, for the approaching 29th birthday ;-), which should take us into the Christmas and New Year's period, barring any unforeseen developments.

Then, it might be time to add another large unit of infantry of cavalry, currently gathering dust in the pile of lead and plastic here in Zum Stollenkeller. I'm also keeping a close and careful eye on the planned development of those Hessians by Fife & Drum. If they resemble SYW Prussians closely enough once greens have been made and some preliminary photographs appear, I know where future regiments of infantry will be recruited. In the meantime, I've got enough unpainted RSM95 Prussians hanging around for two 60-figure regiments of infantry. These require painting in the next year or so.

And finally, there is a solo game to plan and play through during the two weeks in early August when the Grand Duchess and Young Master journey westward for two weeks to visit the other set of grandparents, leaving yours truly to my own devices for a glorious 13 days or so of unstructured, personal time for reading, painting, movie viewing, and listening to the radio. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Enough palaver. . . To the brushes comrades!

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!

An Early July Hussar Update. . .

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...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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