The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  An rather charming vintage German greeting card for a happy new year, featuring a gnome, the good luck pig, and a sack of good fortune. B efore all of us get too busy with New Year's celebrations, in whatever form those might take, allow me to wish all visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog a Happy (Happier?) 2025.   Many similar wargaming hobby blogs have fallen by the wayside since the initial rush of enthusiasm back in the first decade of the 21st century, but we're still here in the capital city of Krankenstadt clanking along as and when time and real life permit.  The early kernel of thought that became Grand Duchy of Stollen will celebrate its 20th anniversary at the start of December 2025 with the blog itself  turning 20 years old in early Fall 2026!   That hyper focus and Johnny One-Note-ism notwithstanding, these upcoming anniversaries provide perfect occasions, now that I think of it, to keep the painting and modelling fires burning....

A brightened and cropped photograph of the Eureka figures that have given me such painting fits the last year or so.  Inching ever closer toward completion now though.  But do remind me to stick to Minden, Fife & Drum, and Crann Tara miniatures next time!   The dry-brushing softened the previously painted on 'full strength' highlights very nicely I think while also helping to pick out the manes, tails, and some of the musculature on the horses.  In general, I am pleased.  Not perfect by any stretch, but we're getting there. A fter two separate sessions in the painting chair yesterday (Saturday), the dry-brushing on the 16 nominally "black" horses is just about finished. I have used a bottle of cheap craft paint -- Delta Ceramcoat 'Charcoal' --  to highlight the black areas of my figures  -- typically painted with a thinned coat or two of Anita's All Purpose Acrylic Craft Paint -- for a coupla three years or so now, and it occurred to me that dry-br...

  Waiting under the tree on Christmas Morning.  The Grand Duchess is wonderfully understanding of my predilections -- Toy soldiers, coffee, cats, and cross-country skiing, W ell, here were are in the midst of Christmas Week 2025, always wonderfully calm, for the most part, following several weeks of hustle and bustle.  However others might observe the festivities (or not. . .  We're a broad church here in the Grand Duchy after all), I hope visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might be enjoying a few hobby or outdoor activities along with family, friends, and additional tasty seasonal food or treats of one kind or another during the final week of 2024.   That said, it is equally understandable if people have had their fill of holiday meals.  We picked up Japanese takeout for a much needed change of pace yesterday evening for example!  Three evenings of roasted goose, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and other fixings meant a well-earned pause...

A seasonally appropriate illustration from a mid-1980s series that ran in Military Modelling entitled something like Christmas Pudding Gone Awry.  I have all six carefully framed and hanging here in Zum Stollenkeller.   T he Grand Duchess Sonja, Young Master Paul, and I wish visitors to the Grand Duchy a peaceful, happy season however, wherever, and with whomever you celebrate. Kind Christmas Regards, Stokes

  The 2024 Stollen just out of the over as the Grand Duchess butters it generously.  A heavy dusting of confectioner's sugar followed, courtesy of the Young Master.  I'll share a photograph of the finished artwork once Sonja bounces the photo to me. My contribution, while not quite as spectacular as Sonja's annual stollens, is the cherry pie, which is her favorite.  I experimented with the top crust this time, something I have thought to do for many years.  It worked out reasonably well I think. M erry Christmas Eve everyone!  And pardon the bad pun,  Just a quick post before Young Master Paul joins me at the breakfast table for some Raisin Bran and cantaloupe (for him), and stollen with coffee (for me) while we listen to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge via BBC Radio Four online.  How things have changed since I used to tune in to BBC World Service via the shortwaves 20+ years ago!   A shower, shave,...

  One of my many hobbies on the side is collecting antique images (albeit digital) of Victorian and Edwardian Father Christmases clad in robes that are in other colors besides red.  I am especially fond of those illustrations that portray ol' Saint Nick in blue, green, brown, and purple.   T he ground is white with fresh snow east of the sun and west of the moon in the far off Grand Duchy of Stollen. Billowing, silvery drifts are piled throughout the country. The rivers and lakes are frozen solid. The woods are still but for the distant jingle of sleigh bells in the bracing air. The sky is slate grey, and heavy coal smoke hangs over the villages and towns. It is Christmas Eve here in the Grand Duchy, somewhere very near to Frederick’s Prussia, but a bit east of the sun and west of the moon, sometime during the mid-18th century.  Citizens of Krankenstadt bustle to and fro through snow-covered streets of the small capital city of the Grand Duchy, running last minute...

  A placeholder photograph borrowed from Wikipedia until I can get my own photo up here in its place. Guess what?  Yes, I am enjoying the first two slices of this year's stollen with hot coffee right now, and it is delicious!  As soon as the Grand Duchess sends me the photographs I took with her iPhone a few moments ago, I'll share a picture here.  Of course, I misplaced my own phone after photographing the candles late yesterday evening.  Argh!!!  Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy might recall that the territory and its immediate neighbors were first conceived way back in early December 2005 once Saturday afternoon as the Grand Duchess baked a small stollen to share with her German students at the time during their final exams.  My home office at the time was across the hallway in our old apartment, the much missed Purple Room, where I sat enjoying the aroma of baking as I tried to come up with a catchy name for a new semi-fictitious mid-18th cent...

  Not toy soldiers but a rather pleasing photograph taken with my phone yesterday evening as the Grand Duchess baked and I kept her company with all manner of advice on how to prepare the annual stollen (watch for a photograph later today). W hile the Grand Duchess baked cornbread for the stuffing/dressing to go with the Christmas goose AND our annual stollen yesterday evening -- That's authentic Dresdner Stollen mind you! -- yours truly took up space by the hearth in the library after finishing gift-wrapping down in Zum Stollenkeller .  We enjoyed soft Christmas music, mulled wine, and a bit of eggnog with freshly ground nutmeg much later in the evening, sitting up until almost 1am.   Staying up late like that is something we never do anymore, but I hope for more of during Christmas Week.  I used to be a night owl for most of my life until the Young Master came along in 2009, which understandably changed the narrative.  Since he is now 15 and large...

  The now familiar place-holder for a later photographic update.  But in the meantime, I kinda like this well-used artist's palette. S pent another 90 minutes or so in the painting chair last night -- before reconvening with the Grand Duchess to enjoy a second glass of an Argentinian red wine (I know, I know. . . living life on the bloody edge here in the Grand Duchy) -- finally seeing to a variety of smaller details.  These included the kettle drum heads and mallets, exposed pistol stocks and holster ends, and the green chevrons along the sleeves of one of the musicians.   I finished the session by starting to apply washes of white to raised areas of the trumpeter's coat.  Neither quite pleased with, nor done with that quite yet, but hope to return this evening after a round of final student team projects and decorating the trees, which I am headed out to pick up midday today (Saturday).   Somewhere in the painting left to do, I must also retouch...

  A bout 90 minutes or so back in the painting chair yesterday evening before later yoga and meditation with the Grand Duchess (I began joining my wife -- a yoga practitioner for more than 20 years at this point -- for this most evenings back in April).  Most of my time behind the brush was spent cleaning up the saddle cloths and highlighting the green distinctions .  You'll also see that I have carried out, but not yet completed, some limited charcoal gray highlights on some of the horses.  Not sure if I like the look of it, but overall these 16 figures are starting to come together I think.  See what you think and feel free to leave a comment or suggestion.  Happy December 13th everyone! -- Stokes

  A quick shot Sunday evening to illustrate where things stand with the larger of two cuirassier batches.  The figures are 28mm Eureka Saxons purchased way back in October 2016 as a present to myself out ahead of a a certain birthday, and they've sat in a drawer ever since until I began sporadic brushwork last January before life got in the way during late March, and all progress halted until very recently. So, how do things stand at the moment? Slowly but surely, we're getting there after several sessions this weekend, primarily seeing to various metallic bits on the horse furniture and adding lace to the saddle cloths as well as touching up the cheekbones, bridges of noses, chins, and in a few cases the jawlines of the officers, troopers, and musicians.   Oh, and look closely.  You'll notice a lot of buttons on the cuffs of many of the figures.  The trick is to touch the very tip of the brush to the button only long enough to leave a tiny fleck of paint ...

  A colorful, if slightly pretentious placeholder until I have a few recent photographs to share. of these blasted Saxons.  Thanks to everyone who sent encouraging comments for the previous post. W ell, it's 10:38am on Saturday morning.  The Grand Duchess and Young Master have headed to Chicago for a 36-hour pre-Christmas mother-son trip via train, leaving yours truly -- along with with the cats and fish -- unsupervised for a couple of days.  What to do?  What to do?    Yes, my thought exactly.  High time to say "No" to everything else and get back to the painting table.  Where things have stalled the last week since the Thanksgiving holiday due to the usual end-of-term things.  It's the same old song and dance as Steven Tyler once sang. But what of the Eureka 28mm Saxon cavalry?  In truth, it has been slow going, but little by little as the old Robert Plant song from about 1984 or '85 goes.  A few slow, painstaking sessio...

  A ppropriately enough, we woke to this scene today.  I took the quick picture from our front door just after 8am while waiting for the coffee water to heat.  Nothing toy soldier related, of course, just a pretty scene to share.  Happy winter everyone! -- Stokes