The figures in question, looking not so very different from their last Kodak moment in August. Isn't it funny how the figures seem like lifeless blobs of metal and paint for so much of the painting process? At some point, however, there will be one key step completed that breaks the back of a project and makes them spring to life. Hopefully, I'll get there before too much longer.
Or so went the wisdom in the war adventure Snow Treasure (1967), a film adaptation of the Marie McSwigan novel by the same title, all about secret efforts by Norwegian school children to transport gold bars out of the country following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940.
A mountain (large task) is really just a series of small hills. This is how I prefer to think of figure painting , especially during those times when progress slows down to a glacial pace.
And so the small painting hill yesterday (Saturday) afternoon and again in the evening was to do the black leather stocks around the men's necks, apply Ral Partha 'Leather Brown' to riding breeches, the long waistcoats that peek our from beneath the black cuirasses, and the same color to the riding gauntlets. Following the Young Master's bedtime, I returned to highlight these same areas sparingly with the same color lightened with white.
This is where things are this (Sunday) morning. Still not much to look at, but we're getting there slowly and steadily with the second squadron of my composite unit of SYW-era horse grenadiers in bearskins.
If life is kind today, and I can get through planning for tomorrow's two classes, I'll grab a small brush and that medium-dark gray I am so fond of to apply sparing highlights to the toes of riding boots, sword scabbards, and cuirasses. Cross your fingers!
-- Stokes
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