First Six of Twelve Underway. . .

Half a dozen Austrian limbers and horse teams in progress. The work shown is what I have managed to do during four sessions spread over three days. Next up, the fleshtone on the rider's faces and the brown glazes on the horses. Giddy-up!

Limbers, horse teams and riders that is. Applying the white acrylic gesso basecoat was a chore (it always is), but the various undercoats on the horses went much more quickly after that. Various thin glazes of oil will be applied over these to produce, when all is finished, a variety of horse colors. I am making a real push over the next 30 days or so to get as much finished as possible before about August 10th since, at that point, I'll need to begin revising syllabi and write a new one for the approaching fall semester at school. Sadly, this will take up much of my remaining free time until classes commence once more at the end of August.

-- Stokes

P.S.
The Young Master spent much of his afternoon with me down in Zum Stollenkeller Mk II where I introduced him to various books on the hobby by the likes of C.S. Grant, Ian Weekley, Neil Thomas, and Bruce Quarrie. He was captivated by the photographs of soldiers arrayed across various miniature landscapes and spent a good couple of hours sitting quietly on the floor paging through the books in question and, apparently, reading for real based on the questions he asked while I painted. Exciting times for us both.

P.P.S.
On another note, we took delivery of a king-sized bed late yesterday afternoon. Left by mistake at a neighbor's house across the street! Once the several large boxes were brought over here to Totliegh-in-the-Wold by said neighbor and yours truly, I spent two+ hours assembling the darn thing yesterday evening. After the mattress is delivered tomorrow, it should be quite comfortable. A plus side is, of course, all of the styrofoam sheeting that encased the various pieces of the wooden bedframe. Instead of painting these, I'll just place them under the Woodland Scenics vinyl grass mats that are on the way. Presto! Instant hills, ridges, and knolls.

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

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 Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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