A Few Figures from Fife & Drum. . .

 "General Washington I presume?"  A Fife&Drum staff group.  The figures were painted mostly with oils over a base of white acrylic gesso in late 2013.  A few small details were picked out with Citadel hobby acrylics.

Up too early for a Sunday morning thanks to bright sunlight streaming into the bedroom. So, what better way to wake up than to kill a few hours than with a mug of coffee and some classical music via ABC Classics FM from Australia via the internet?  Exactly.

Fooled around with Photoshop Elements late yesterday afternoon and during the early evening after the Young Master's bedtime, brightening and cropping a number of old photos from the last few years.  Here are a couple of pictures that feature figures from the Fife&Drum line.  The American War of Independence isn't really my thing (not enough cavalry generally), although the Battle of Guilford Courthouse is interesting, but it's hard to resist purchasing and painting a few of these figures for my collection since the Grand Duchy of Stollen campaign is a semi-fictitious venture anyway. 

As a result, I am quite happy to include F&D miniatures with the rest of my figures, and a few have cropped up here and there in a number of my vignettes during the last two years or so.  All tricornered hats are fair game you know.  At some point, I'll simply have to add two or three squadrons of dragoons since these figures are simply too good not to include a full unit of them on the tabletop.  They can pose as some kind of irregular unit of cavalry or other in either the Army of Stollen of the Army of Zichenau without too much trouble I think.

Finally, we take off to Berlin for seven weeks in a couple of days, and I will take advantage of our time there to order a few more suitable mid-18th century goodies from Black Hussar Miniatures, based in Berlin coincidentally, plus a small package of dogs from Westphalia Miniatures in the U.K., and the Suren/Willie fox hunting set from Tradition of London.  And, of course, there will be the obligatory visit or two to Berliner Zinnfiguren, always worth a good browse even if you don't find something to purchase.  

As in previous years, the planned purchases will make the trip home in the carry-on baggage, mine this time instead of the Grand Duchess'.  Once painted and given the usual scenic base treatment, these items will be used to enliven the peripheries of future tabletop encounters in the new Stollenkeller wherever that might be.  The fox hunting set, in particular, should fit in rather well with that large group of frolicking aristocrats from Jackdaw that have shown up here before at the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog.

-- Stokes

Skulkers!  A few recalcitrant continentals in various uniforms creep away from the main firing line under the cover of powder smoke.  Once again, F&D miniatures painted in much the same way as the staff vignette above during late 2013.  The groundwork in both cases is a combination of fine sand stained dark brown with an acrylic wash.  Woodland Scenics materials were then tacked down with artist's acrylic matte medium although a dot or two of superglue was necessary to keep the tufts and clumps of weeds firmly in place.