The Grand Duchy of Stollen

All attached to their bases, the various wagons and carts await the attachment of a few final items, on the way from the Dayton Painting Consortium, and then their undercoats.  I plan to add additional pairs of horses/riders to the five Fife&Drum powder and pontoon wagons before long.  Model wagons this nice simply need four horses to do them full justice! M aking slow but steady progress getting the wagons and carts ready for base-coating and painting.  Yesterday (Saturday), the Grand Duchess was away at an all day conference, and the Young Master was good enough to desire playing with his Thomas the Train set-up for most of the afternoon.  So, Dad was able to spend a good little while -- really 2-3 separate sessions -- attaching wagons, horses, oxen, and drovers to bases.  Here is where things stand at the moment. In the end, I ended up cutting out my own bases with a T-square, metal ruler, and hobby knife, which took a couple of hours and some care...

Breaker 1-9!  Breaker 1-9!  You got your ears on, good buddy?  The convoy in its fully assembled state.  Maybe I can find a 28mm Kris Kristofferson figure somewhere to head it up?  T he supply and pontoon trains are now fully assembled.  The various wagons and carts are from the Old Glory, Blue Moon, and Fife&Drum ranges by the way.  Although nothing is painted yet, I like the look of everything so much that I am sorely tempted to order a few more different wagons and carts later in the spring or early summer just to add some more variety.  Of course, the armies of Stollen and Zichenau "need" a vivandiere cart or two, don't they?  And then there is the Berliner Zinnfiguren mobile forge that I need to order soon, so the Grand Duchess can pick up and transport it home when she visits Berlin in May. A few more Minden walking and seated drivers/drovers and some RSM95 limber horse riders are necessary to complete the picture. ...

Most of the wagons and carts are now mostly assembled although there are still a few tiny bits and pieces to cement together on the two wagons in the background next to the Humbrol enamels and the two wagons in the foreground.  In addition, the two open-sided hay carts, drawn by the oxen, are due to have their 'ribs' (for want of a better term) cemented into place.  That particular step should be a huge pain in backside, so I'm avoiding it at the moment. T h e pontoon and supply trains are taking gradual shape.  Since a brief adolescent foray into Revell plastic model car kits 3+ decades ago -- I went through a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray phase with I was 11-12 years old.  Farrah Fawcett Majors' "Foxy 'Vette" in silver-gray plastic anyone? -- I had forgotten how you've got to assemble multipart models bit by painstaking bit.  Which requires holding your breath, of course, as you carefully glue a few tiny pieces into place and back gently away from...

An RSM95 cuirassier officer -- Prussian or Austrian, I can never remember which -- and an RSM95 dragoon officer that comes, I think, from the French range of SYW figures.  The horses are by RSM95 too. A lrighty!  I've now completed all eight of the singly based aides de camp, a mix of various and sundry RSM95, Fife&Drum, and Minden rider and horse figures.  Time now to dive headlong into the various wagons, carts, and teams now littering my painting area.  I've got a new bottle of thick, slower curing CA glue from the local model railway shop just for that purpose. The figures shown here, at any rate, are based on the Saxon 'Von Arnim' Cuirrassiers and 'Von Leipziger' Dragoons uniforms worn by officers in these regiments as presented in Dr. Stephen Sommerfield's book on the subject -- The Saxon Army of the Austrian War of Succession and the Seven Years War (2011) along with the usual bit of artistic (??!!) license.   These figures aren...

Banastre Tarleton (left) and Francis Marion (right).  Figures by Fife&Drum, painted mostly with Winsor & Newton Griffin alkyd oils, some details picked out with Citadel acrylics, and groundwork done with Woodland Scenics. A ll good road movies need a duo of sorts.  Sarandon and Davis, Gibson and Glover, Martin and Lewis, Hope and Crosby, Abbott and Costello. . .  Tarleton and Marion.  Just think of the films those two could have made!   Anyway, here they are, freshly glossed and terrained -- Banastre and Francis.  Not hyper-detailed, but enough to make me happy, and, most important, they are done.  They'll do fine at arm's length on the table.  Tarleton will serve as an officer in the Army of Zichenau, and Marion in the Army of Stollen where his dark blue and red-faced coat will fit right in. -- Stokes   Francis Marion, aka "The Swampfox" up close and personal.  You see here how, if things work like they should...

  The recently added selection of wagons, carts, horse teams, drovers, drivers, oh, and the small but respectably sized (and organized) pile of lead here at Stollen Central. N ot much has happened during the last couple of weeks here at Stollen Central due mostly to professional and service commitments.  Sigh.  However, we are at the star our our nine-day Spring Break, so I'm making efforts to rectify the situation.  That's as it should be after all, right? First, I've wrapped up the glossing on my Fife&Drum Banastre Tarleton and Francis Marion figures, who will have their groundwork finished this evening.  Depending on how I fell, I might just dust off the foamcore lightbox and camera to snap a couple or three photographs of the finished miniatures to share here.   Next, I have started on those final two RSM95 figures, a cuirassier and a dragoon officer, which I'll paint, naturally, as a Saxon cuirassier officer and a Prussian dragoon off...