Back to the Painting Bench!

36 unpainted Minden Austrian dragoons stand ready for summer painting.

Many of us in the wargaming world are familiar with those two maladies associated with the hobby.  Do I refer to painter's elbow or deteriorating eyesight?  No.  I'm talking about those other two afflictions.  Come on.  You know what I mean.  Well-laid plans and butterflies.  Please allow me to say just a few words about each.

As far as plans go, some in the hobby -- those rare creatures -- make detailed plans and carry them out without a hitch.  Masters of focus, project management, and sheer painting output.  God bless 'em, those lucky so and so's.

Then, there are those of us, who despite the best of intentions, never quite manage to see their plans come to fruition.  At least not as rapidly as we'd like.  Which leads us to our next related point for today.

Often, it is those wargaming butterflies that complicate whatever picture we might carry in our minds (the almighty mental list) of the aforementioned best laid plans.  The "Ooooh, shiny!" syndrome.  Which leads me back to my own fairly recent hobby activities.  You knew we'd eventually make it there, right?

Painting on 14 Minden Prussian Bosniaks ticked along for a nice little while here and there during the autumn months last year and through the Christmas season, culminating in a New Year's Day game with my son, Young Master Paul.  Some of you might recall the photographs I shared of our game in a previous post.

As the new university semester took off shortly thereafter, I managed to keep going at the painting bench, somewhat more sporadically, as things inevitably became busier and gradually left me with less free time, or just too mentally wiped out by day's end to contemplate evening painting.  Still, I managed to get the 14 figures and steeds very close to being finished, barring the small black horizontal stripes on most of the lances, before traveling to visit my mother and stepfather for a week during our spring vacation at the start of March.  

All fine and dandy.  The plan was to finish those after returning home.  But that's not quite the way things have panned out the last month or so.

My employer, Michigan State University, made the very smart, informed, and early decision to make all face-to-face courses 'remote' for the remainder of the spring semester after just two days back during the second week of March.  It needs no further explanation other than to mention Covid-19 and the resulting worldwide health crisis.  One student somewhere on campus exhibited symptoms right before classes began again on Monday, March 9th, and that was it.  By midday on the 11th, word went out.  Face-to-face classes cancelled for the rest of the spring semester.  We've been running things ever since via email, texting, Zoom, Prezi, and so forth ever since.  But all of that has left even less time for anything fun like painting toy soldiers.

However, Minden Miniatures came to the rescue.  Like the U.S. cavalry in an old Western film, I have been spurred on thanks to a recent week of 15% discount on purchases due to overstock resulting from the cancellation [postponed until late July actually] of the annual Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend, Indiana.  How could you say no to a discount like that?  So, I took advantage of it to round out a growing unit of Austrian dragoons, the first several packs of which were stocking stuffers from Ol' Saint Nick for Christmas 2018 and Christmas '19.

All of this means that I now have the monster regiment of 36 figures and riders, pictured above, which needs to be painted.  It seems like a good idea to attempt this between May and late August this year before classes, online or otherwise, start up again at the beginning of September later this year.

Long-time visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen will realize already that my painting has never been what you might call fast.  That explains why my mid-18th century collection of painted battalions, regiments, batteries, supporting units, and civilians is still relatively small by some standards after almost 14 years of work on The Grand Duchy of Stollen Collection.  Painting time was reduced considerably with the arrival of our son in October 2009 and again following our move to Michigan State a few years later in 2015 where more has been required in the positions that The Grand Duchess (administration) and I (teaching faculty) took at that point.  But it's really more about the journey than the destination, right?

But I digress.  Returning to the point at hand, how in the world do I expect to get the planned three-squadron unit of dragoons completed in roughly four months?  No way around it.  This is going to be a lot of painting however I might try to break it down into smaller chunks.  Trying something different when it comes to the painting process and looking for a simpler uniform to paint soon emerged as the answer to the conundrum.

Rather than fall back on my tried and true approach of many years' standing and NOT attach riders to horses first.  Nope.  This time, I plan to undercoat and paint all 36 horses first before moving on to the officers, musicians, and troopers.  Mostly a tan undercoat with four or five horse getting yellow, and then all chestnuts with a few bays using just two oil-based browns.  One or two horses will become greys for the musicians.  

The actual riders are earmarked for the relatively simple dark blue, faced red uniforms worn by Austria's Batthyani Dragoons.  See Morier's painting below.  Kronoskaf shows saddlecloths also in dark blue.  So, if I keep everything dark blue, facings and turnbacks red, with slightly lighter highlights kept to a bare minimum, it should be possible to churn out completed figures in fairly short order -- roughly four months -- once the current semester ends in just a few weeks, final grades are submitted online, and things settle down somewhat.  

We'll see how things go.  In any case, oils for the horse coats and fleshtone with acrylics for most other large areas and detailing.  I really enjoy the effects you can get through oils, but time is of the essence.  Even with products like Liquin and alkyd-based oil paints, which greatly reduce drying time and help oils flow nicely over surfaces, sometimes you've just gotta bite the bullet and go with hobby acrylics for the greatest ease of use and end results.

After everything has been painted and glossed, then riders will be attached carefully to horses.  If I can restock my supply of laser-cut ply bases before then -- Like many other small businesses, Litko has been impacted by the ongoing public health crisis with a hold on any new orders for the time being and a delay in shipping of current orders. -- I might attach the horses to their permanent bases before attaching riders.  I'll have to play that by ear, I guess, depending on how the situation develops over the next several months.

But in the meantime, let's finish those horizontal black lance stripes on the Bosniaks and get 'em glossed, eh?  Detailed plans for the next big thing are very nice, but we don't want to leave previous painting projects unfinished. . .  One of the many stumbling blocks that hindered my corps-level Waterloo-era 15mm project many, many years ago now, and which I never quite managed to finish.  Sigh.  Should have gone for 5-6mm.  Or hair roller armies.  Where was my head? 

So, the moral of the painting story?  Kids, don't try this at home!  It's always better, in my humble view, to finish what we start before rushing off wildly in a new direction.

-- Stokes

A grenadier of Austria's Batthyani Regiment, painted by David Morier, ca. 1749.