Third and Fourth Night's Painting: The Whites

Starting to come together a bit more with the current batch of figures.

Things have gone so quickly and smoothly so far that we were bound to slow down considerably when it came to applying white to the coats and shoulder belts as well as touching up areas that are destined for eventual Sap Green with additional dabs of (total absence of) color.  So, two consecutive and tedious evenings applying white, somewhere between a wash and damp-brushing in consistency, have produced coats that are a very, very light gray, almost white on the raised areas really.  

The mounted officer and standard bearer in the back row were given an extra application of white on the shoulders, upper arms, and chests to make their coats a wee bit brighter as one would expect for officers, who usually wore better quality garments.  And then it was time to touch up the cuffs, lapels, waistcoats, and turnbacks in preparation for the Sap Green facing color, the same shade of green used for General von Bauchschmerzen's lap blanket and Uhlan de Saxe escort.  We are taking down the Christmas trees this evening after the Young Master's bedtime, so no painting this tonight however.  The next session will have to wait until Sunday afternoon.

Speaking of the Young Master, guess who spent quite bit of time standing at my left elbow asking about everything under the sun about painting these figures, and the three bright desk lamps, while I worked?  The Young Master it was.  He is also quite taken with the recently finished General von Bauchschmerzen vignette and asked various times when the general might appear once more, and whether or not his stomach ache was gone.  Finally, before we retired upstairs for the evening, the Young Master asked me to show him how to paint soldiers when he is older.  Yes, indeed.  Father and young son had a pleasant couple of hours chatting about soldier painting as ol' Dad plugged away.

Anyway, we have a date to play with the knights, dragons, and castle, which Santa Claus brought for Christmas 2013,  -- augmented with a few new pieces this Christmas -- after supper this evening before his bedtime, so I'll wrap things up for now.

-- Stokes


P.S.
The Yong Master improvised his own version of General von Bauchschmerzen using several of his knights, horses, and a couple of small wooden building blocks for the carriage as we played together on his bedroom carpet following supper this evening.  Reminded me of when I was a boy, but it's even better now fooling around with YMP and his kit.