The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Making my way around the table, gluing the various layers in place, and using various Charles S. Grant titles to hold everything in place until dry.  Nice, weighty books as useful for holding sections of foamcore board fl at while the glue dr ies as they are interesting and inspirational reads .  Also a ppropriate for hills inspired by those seen in these various Wargaming in History titles and Wargamers' Annuals during the last several years.  David Chandler titles would have been overkill.  They're also less convenient being on a lower bookshelf. C ue the Led Zeppelin!  Painting in the same bright green as the tabletop to follow in the next couple of days. -- Stokes

  Here is where things stand at the moment. S till messing around adding layers to hills and ridges this afternoon with the help of my small, blonde assistant. Happy Fathers' Day everyone! -- Stokes

  The Young Master hard at work late this afternoon coloring the Hasenpfeffer River.  That's the village of Hasenpfeffer on the summit of the hill by the way.  A lake, pond, and mill run were later added. T he Young Master and I spent the second half of our Saturday afternoon working on eventual hills.  By all accounts, a great deal of fun was had by all.  After supper, the three of us retired to the rear deck where the Young Master spent an hour running through the sprinklers, as the backyard was watered, while the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed, coffee, tea, and some kind of small lemon zest cookies.  Two short Star Wars stories followed just before bed after tooth - brushing and pajamas.  It has been a good day here at Totleigh-in-the-Wold . -- Stokes   Here is nearby Hasenpfefferwald complete with insects, a taxi, and prehistoric creatures. More of the finished forest over on the painting desk.  There is even more in a ne...

The Young Master checking out several of the two dozen Zvezda trees we assembled yesterday afternoon.  This was the first time he really and truly assisted with something wargaming-related.  It took us about 90 minutes and was fun despite the tedium of sorting through everything. B ut the leaves on the trees.  Or pine needles as the case may be.  Yesterday was a rainy day, so the Young Master, who finished school last week and is now into his summer vacation, spent most of the day hanging around with me in Zum Stollenkeller Mk II here at Totleigh-in-the-Wold doing one thing and another .  We began by p laying with a large cardboard wardrobe box , which functioned as a rocket, an anthill, then a skyscraper .  W i thout slowing down, YMP next moved to playing with his large collection of plastic dinosaurs, Legos, and then Matchbox cars.  All o f the great things that six-year-old boys do in fact.  A full lunch with Dad at the dining table was...

Here is an example of what I'm blathering on about below.  I've included the 1/56th versions of von Moritz and von Ziethen for size comparison.  Incidentally, some of the smaller Litko terrain bases might also be just the thing for command vignettes, which is, now that you mention it, another idea I've had banging 'round inside the ol' noggin lately. D uring freer moments over the weekend, I plu gged away at bases for 72 or so cake decoration trees, long in my possession and have featured occasionally in games over the years .  I attached these to Litko terrain bases of various dimensions and then paint ed said bases in a Glidden latex (emulsion) color otherwise known as 'Deep Shaded Green.'  The color seems only right for shaded forest, wood, copse, and thicket floors .   Due to a minor miscalculation on my part -- something that never , EVER happens in my universe I assure you. . .  ahem -- I have yet to affix my two dozen or so Strelet...

Painting the laser cut Litko bases this aternoon in the same green as my tabletop, Olympic Grassy Meadow, which helps them magically recede into said surface. Here's the entire regiment from above with the as yet unglued figures in place. And here is a shot of the line from almost 30mm soldier level.  Th e regimental line stretches a staggering 22 inches in length when the staff and color bear ers are placed in the center ! B asing in progress, but nothing is tacked permanently down quite yet.  From right to left, my versions of: The Kurmainz grenadiers, Sachsen-Weimar, Sachsen-Coburg, and Sachsen-Hil d burghausen contingents.  Just about there after a year and half of sporadic painting.  Whew! -- Stokes P .S. 1 0:15pm, and I have just finished gluing the figures in place .  Tomorrow evening will see me addressing a few final touch-ups, and then I am calling this particula r project done.  It's time to do something else for a while...

Here is one half of the monster 80-figure regiment -- the now finished Sachsen-Hildburghausen contingent is in the blue coats -- with its second coat of acr ylic gloss all dry . M ade the big push to get things wrapped up and apply two coats of Liquitex acrylic gloss varnish to the Sachsen-Hildburghausen boys yesterday (Saturday) afternoon and evening.  That went so quickly that I also took the opportunity to apply a second coat of the stuff to the 19 figures , completed at the start of March, at the conclusion of a friendly painting challenge that several wargaming friends and acquaintances and I scrambl ed through in February.  You'll observe a hastily taken photograph above of this half of the regiment.   Today, once I have made a Sunday breakfast for the Grand Duchess and Young Master, I will begin permanent basing of the entire 80-figure unit!  This will be fun because I have a bunch of laser-cut Litko bases which should really smarten up the vari...

Here is where the current batch of figures stands.  Not brightened at all to avoid blitzing the raised areas and other details.  Still not as good a photograph as some that I've taken in the past with my lightbox, but it is a work-in-progress picture after all. W ell, Sir. . .  I took the Friday afternoon off from article writing and made a real push to address a bunch of small details on my version of the Sachesen-Hildburghausen contingent that was part of the Ernestine Sachsen Regiment.  A few tiny touch-ups still to do.  I also see, much to my chagrin, that the eight musketeers in the middle distance still need their white shirt cuffs painted in, darn it!  This evening after the Young Master's bedtime then. In other hobby news, I received a bunch of laser cut bases by Litko in the mail today, so the next thing to do after the figures above get their gloss varnish and are based up with the rest o the 80-igure regiment, is to begin preparing 10 or 1...

One of the 19 figures currently underway whose face turned out rather nicely.  Notice the darker pigment in his eye sockets and on either side of his nose and mouth? M onkeying around this Wednesday evening with the online photograph editor Pixlr.com, which allows you to achieve many of the same effects as Photoshop Elements, although the names o certain functions differ between the two , which makes the learning curve a bit steep.  In particular, I have brightened and sharpened the photograph of the current works-in-progress here as well as run the auto levels (colors?) adjustment function before finally cropping it in four ways.   What I intended was to highlight is how, when you apply your fleshtone thinly enough, the pigment will settle in the eye sockets and along the sides of the noses and mouths as it dries, making these areas a bit darker.  Conversely, the cheekbones, noses, and chins will show up a bit lighter (remember the white basecoat?) whe...