Three (relatively) short sessions in the painting chair yesterday at different points between early afternoon and early evening after dinner and a walk around the neighborhood with the Grand Duchess. Still no earth shattering progress, but the 14 figures (riders AND horses remember) are coming together bit by painstaking bit.
No question about it though. Painting cavalry units is a challenge given the sheer amount of metal or plastic to cover in various layers of paint. Whew! But 12-14 cavalry at a time seem manageable. A large enough chunk to make a dent in the infamous Drawer o' Lead, but not so many figures and horses that you despair and give up.
Remind me of that when I dive into those 36 or so Minden Austrian hussars, still waiting in their shipping box(es) over in the closet here in Zum Stollenkeller. Jim is highly astute with his periodic sales and promotions, which is what led me to conclude that I "needed" another regiment of hussars. I should have my head examined. However, we can also blame that photograph of a large regiment of light blue French hussars on the table at the old Wargames Holiday Centre, which were featured on the back cover of a very early issue of Miniature Wargames. You know the one.
But I digress!
Yesterday saw me finishing up the retouching or red areas, brown pistol stocks, and turnbacks, which seem to be the only visible areas that need the 'coffee brown' facing color highlight. Must double-check though.
Surely I have made the observation before, but you don't always realize the amount of brown used on figures for various details large and small. At least as an undercoat before careful and sparing highlights are added later. The point is, it pays to have a range of browns and tans in the collection of paints used regardless of preferred armies and eras.
Anyway, no huge painting mishaps the last couple of days, at least few that could not be quickly wicked away with a clean, wet brush before the blotch of acrylic color set. Oh, there was some silver that I managed to get on the edge of a hat, but that will be easy enough to cover with black later.
Speaking of which. . .
A clear, pleasant day forecast for today, so mowing late this afternoon before the evening meal. Hopefully, I'll squeeze in an hour or so at the painting table afterwords to tackle more brown undercoating and the remaining three sword blades.
Ok, enough nattering on about this and that. It's almost 10am. Time to dress, make breakfast for the Young Master, and set up a fresh pot of coffee. Onward and upward, eh?
-- Stokes
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