It's Aliiiiiiiive!

Not an overtly Christmasy image, but the child on skis is gazing at a particular bright star in the heavens.

Blaaggh. I have caught The Grand Duchess' nasty cold, and have felt crummy for the last 24 hours or so. However, I finally pulled myself out of bed, showered, shaved, put on clean crisp pajamas and some Gray Flannel aftershave before staggering down here to Zum Stollenkeller with a second mug of coffee. I might just make it after all. The curative powers of a warm shower and a shave.

Hopefully, I'll feel like sitting down to the paiting table for a bit this evening and playing that small solo game on New Year's Eve tomorrow. I've been thinking of a simple Featherstone scenario with two infantry regiments, a cavalry squadron, and a gun each. You know. Just to test the water and push some lead around the table for a couple of hours in a low stakes game.

-- Stokes

Comments

Der Alte Fritz said…

Orange juice (vitamin C) and lots of water will help.

2:22 PM

marinergrim said…

Hope you recover quickly. I’ve always believed in the restorative powers of a single malt over a cold.

4:07 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thanks for the tips, men. I've enjoyed two big glasses of cold OJ today, and the single malt sounds like just the thing before bedtime. At the very least, it will knock me out.

Best Regards,

Stokes

5:46 PM

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

Search This Blog