An Advent Painting Update. . .

Not completely dead here in the Grand Duchy, just pulled in too many directions by "life" these last several weeks.

Nevertheless, I have managed to get my version of Austria's Wied Infantry to the detailing stage. Still lots of little things to take care of for all 60+ figures, including the flags, but many of these are small enough that we are talking a slight touch of the brush to leave color behind (Buttons anyone?), and Bob's your mother's brother. In theory at least.

Plus the inevitable and invariable touch-ups and clean-ups. Looking at the photos, I need to clean up the dark brown musket stocks to cover areas where I went outside the lines with gun metal on the musket barrels for instance.

And The Young Master has suggested a battle or two during Christmas week. Good man! He is always hankering after a larger affair though, so I am thinking a preliminary skirmish followed by a larger set-piece. What do you think?

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In other news, the fall semester/term is winding down, so besides a couple of committees, some collaborative writing with a colleague, and finalizing a pilot study for next semester, I should have a bit more time for painting shortly. He said.

I've also included with this post a few Advent images from around the Grand Duchy. We tend to keep things relatively understated here in the run up to Christmas, but it is starting to feel kind of festive at Chez Stollen.

Apropos that, The Grand Duchess and I spent yesterday evening drinking a bottle of Italian red by the fire and chatting about all manner of this to soft seasonal German choir music in the background. It was a delight.

Today (Saturday) The Young Master tests for his Black Belt Recommended status in Tae Kwon Do. If he makes it, he will enter the final six months of training toward his black belt, with testing for that in June 2023.

We also have a gala dinner Sunday evening for the various Tae Kwon Do students and their families at a local hotel. Time to pull out and dust off the evening attire!

-- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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