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

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 ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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