Strike While the Iron Is Hot. . .

And the next batch of figures, this time a compositie grenadier battalion made up of (surprise, surprise) Minden Prussians.

A little bit of time organizing things for the next round of painting yesterday evening after The Young Master's bedtime. I had stuck these figures to their temporary painting bases a few weeks back, so it was simply a mater of finding which plastic container I had stored them in. Not a bad problem to have.

Today is gray and rainy once more. No errands need be run. Too wet for playing outside, tending any outdoor plants, or firing up the ol' lawnmower. The perfect excuse to slap on a couple of coats of white gesso and get started. Ah, Summer. . .

For your perusal, I've also included the models I'll use for these, um, models when it comes to the painting part. I can't help the alliteration, really. It just seems to happen. Must stem from that time my maternal uncle dropped me on my head while babysitting when I was around six months old. In truth, I rolled off the bed. The incident has been something of a family joke for more than half a century although I am always told he was beside himself at the time.

Anyway, as usual I have tried to find the most colorful, atypical uniforms while remaining within the realm of the relatively historical. Have a look below and see what you think.

-- Stokes

The uniform purportedly worn by Wurttemburg's Haus Grenadiers. What really grabbed my attention were the relatively unusal green facings and bag atop the mitre cap. Finally, an infantry unit sporting a facing color different than the typical red facings worn by so many of the Protestant statelettes allied with Frederick's Prussia! This and the following two illustrations come from the Kronoskaf 'Project Seven Years War' website.

Hessen-Kassel's Cannitz Regiment. Apparently, the grenadiers wore a mitre with a white metal front plate.

Here's a Knoetel illustration of the same regiment in 1749, then known as the Hessenstein Regiment. I might give mine the earlier white gaiters and stock just the keep things interesting with the second half of the battalion.

Comments

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said…

I like the deep yellow facings, Red on blue does get tiresome.

1:10 PM

warpaintjj said…

Go for it, you're on a roll!

Best wishes,

Jeremy

3:17 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

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