The Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Contingent: Painting Session #8. . .

Just about ready for glossing, here is where things stand this morning with the current batch of 20 RSM95 figures. Nothing fancy, and far from perfect show-piece painting, but not too bad either. More important, they are almost finished!

Sometimes, the stars line up and time spent at the painting table goes off without a hitch. And that's how yesterday evening's two-hour session -- #8 for this particular batch of figures -- went. Mostly. I first touched up the rear of the shoulder belts where necessary after painting in the black ersatz pigtails and followed with a tiny, careful dab of white on the chests to suggest a bit of shirt peeking out from beneath the blue coats just below the red stocks.

Then, it was time to hold my breath and carefully line the hats with white 'tape'. Only two minor slops, which were easy to fix with some very thin black afterwards, but I think the point of my Cottman #1 round has seen better days, and the brush needs to be replaced. As I moved through the painting process last night, I also attended to bits and pieces on the drummer at far left and the officer right next to him. These both need a bit more detailing this evening, but then the entire batch will be ready for the usual acrylic gloss treatment. But get a load of those shoulder wings! I managed to get 'em right the first time with my tiny 001 sable spotter brush (20+ years old), which does not always happen.

So, what's next? Well, I'll next make a slight detour and see to 24 Minden military laborers and a mounted officer, which I'll paint as two companies of pioneers. I need to get these done so that the finished figures can be photographed and submitted with a piece I must write and send off in the next several weeks. Hopefully, my pioneers will go as quickly as the previous two companies of Minden pontooniers did back in November of 2014.

Besides the picks, shovels, axes, and adzes that come with the Minden laborer figures, I've got a ladder, a wheelbarrow, and some (balsa) boards to glue into the hands of a few figures prior to basecoating, so the finished unit should be interesting and varied in appearance. Right now, I am mulling over possible ways to base them so that each base is a mini-vignette of two or three figures engaged in some kind of shared activity. I might fool around with some potential configurations this evening following the Young Master's bedtime.

Anyway, it's then back to the 80-figure regiment, which will eventually consist of contingents from Kurmainz, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg, and Saxe-Hildburghausen. And I'm really feeling like three squadrons of cavalry after that. Maybe some RSM95 Prussian dragoons that have been in the leadpile for, oh, the last seven years or so? Or perhaps the eight Minden Uhans de Saxe as escorts for General von Bauchschmerzen and his coach? I'll know when I get to that point I suppose, but the journey and musing along the way is at least half of the fun.

-- Stokes

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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