Skip to main content

About Facings. . .

 

After several short(-er) painting sessions Sunday morning and early afternoon, here's where things stand with the final 15 Croats, based on the Slavonsich-Brooder Grenzer. In keeping with the muted palette, I used Army Painter 'Basilisk Brown' for the yellow facing color.  Fairly easy to apply to the cuffs but trickier for the visible edges of the coat collars. 

For a while, I toyed with the idea of applying a slightly brighter yellow highlight, at least to the cuffs, but decided against that in the end.   Fewer things are more frustrating than a snafu+ atop already reasonably good brushwork.  You know what I mean.

The trick seems to be to get only the tiniest bit of color onto the very tip of the bristles -- my trusty old 000 sable spotter that I've had for going on 25 years -- and deposit a drop or so onto the visible collar edges.  Be careful to leave some of the dark undercoat showing and wick away any excess with a damp brush quickly before it sets.  As always, not perfect, but good enough at arm's length I think. 

I also took the opportunity to begin addressing any visible sashes and finished with applying my usual very dark gray to the edges of the black cartridge pouches and shakos.  Must return to the latter this evening, or tomorrow for a bit of touching up, but the figures are getting there.  Of course, we're not out of the woods yet (That's a Croat joke, son!).  Still much to do, but I'm pleased enough with my progress since Friday evening, so it seems like a good idea to take a break and give the eyes a rest now.

-- Stokes

Comments

Phil said…
Coming to life, Stokes. Nearly there! Best rgds. Phil
Duke of Baylen said…
Glad you went with the collars too. You'll be -pleased to reach a new complete unit. If you're like me, the closer I get to finishing a unit the more I am planning the next one. And so the cycle repeats.
Stephen
Thank you for your kind words, gentlemen! Indeed, I am starting to think about the color of horses and which regiment I might use as a basis for the second half of those blasted 30 or so Eureka Saxon cuirassiers. Gotta get those done and off the table before moving onto the next couple of planned units in the queue: 36+ Minden Austrain hussars and about 60 infantry based on one or another of the Reichsarmee regiments. Must review the plan first though.

Kind Regards,

Stokes
caveadsum1471 said…
Lovely work, in contrast to your detailed approach I tend to have a number of units on the go so that I can share colours as I go and push a number of units along, these are already quite delightful!
Best Iain
Anonymous said…
The USA, well you cannot polish a turd can you?

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...