As Hirsuite As Deep Purple ca. 1972. . .

Which one looks the most like the late Jon Lord to you?

Here's where we stand with the batch of now 15 Minden and RSM95 Croats after catching up Private Gulyás (now with a muted yellow and blue cockade on his shako) and tackling the combination of mustaches, hair locks, and queues in three or four different shades of brown. A particular challenge was allowing those slivers of ears to show and NOT obscuring the tips of noses with tiny flecks of paint.

Briefer than usual painting sessions helped, of course, but definitely not feeling like a highway star with the paintbrush after several sessions focused on these related details during the last couple of days. Whew!

Never what you might call fun, these particular details on figures of any size have always been a real challenge for my painting skills and concentration. And it hasn't become any easier these last 40+ years or so. Still, they look reasonably good, and I can now move on to the various belts, straps, facings, braid, and musket stocks before the inevitable touch-ups.

But time now for a coffee break and then some actual "real life" work to prepare for a Zoom meeting with a colleague this evening.

-- Stokes

Comments

Rob said…

For me it has to be the officer on the far left.

11:29 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

I thought the same almost as soon as I asked the question, Rob! He's missing only Jon's habitual dark glasses. And Hammond organ of course.

Kind Regards,

Stokes

12:16 PM

tradgardmastare said…

“ There once was a Croat, a strange kind of Croat, the kind that gets written down in history …” as they say.
Great figures coming along very nicely.
Alan

12:04 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you Alan! Little by little.

Kind Sunday Regards,

Stokes

8:15 AM

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...

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 Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog