The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  Of the many vintage images of Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus collected during the last 20 years or so, this one has to be my favorite. T he ground is once again 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 the easternmost reaches of Frederick’s Prussia, 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 errands before the Christmas festival begins in earnest. The red brick North German Gothic storefronts feature special Christmas items and treats like the marzip...

  M ore than a couple of painting sessions yesterday (Saturday) and today, working solely on the muskets carried by most of the 20 figures currently under the brush.  Specifically, musket barrels, bayonets, ramrods (Yes, you read that right!) and firelocks/pans just above the musketeers' left hands.  These items were touched lightly with Gun Metal, using a 000 sable round, a color which I prefer to straight silver in this instance.  Look very carefully.  It's there.   The various brass fittings followed and took an age over several sessions in the painting chair late this morning and throughout the afternoon.  Miraculously (some might suggest kindly), the painting gods smiled on me throughout, and there were relatively few misplaced blotches to clean up later.  It is not always so.   To be sure, there were a few flubs along the way. Along with hissed blue language.  But it could have been worse.  Overall, though, I'm relat...

  T he second batch of Anhalt-Zerbst figures is shaping up reasonably well. After a number of days of 45-90 minutes painting sessions, the reds, blacks, and (most of) the browns are finished.   Musket detailing with limited highlighting of the stocks is next on the agenda.  Time permitting, I might also add the tiny white straps on the flap of the knapsacks hanging over the right shoulders of the musketeers.   The RSM95 grenadier (in bearskin) lacks this particular feature.   This particular figures is, you'll note, out of step with with everyone else.  Not unlike yours truly.   Let's dub the miniature in question Grenadier Lennert Etwasschraeg , who hails originally from a farming family in the Tyrol.  Impressively tall but not necessarily the brightest bulb, his mother nevertheless  has high hopes that he might meet a nice Saxon milkmaid outside of Zerbst and settle down.   Once the 60-odd figure regiment ...

  T ackling the reds on the current (middle) batch of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment.  The Citadel 'Khorne Red' turnbacks left a lot of areas that needed cleaning up with careful reapplications of my preferred Quaker Gray undercoat and black, but the figures look, if not quite all present and correct, then at least more pulled together for now.   Once their cuffs and lapels have been done, again with the darker red, then I'll go back to apply dots and dashes of Vallejo 'Flat Red' as a highlight.  And then it will be back to things like shoulder belts, musket barrels, straps, etc. before finally applying washes of white to various areas of uniform, mustaches, drummer, and so forth.   And finally the many, many brass buttons, hat hackles, and corner tassels. Whew!  Trying to squeeze in at least an hour of painting time a day to get this batch done and dusted by Christmas Eve.   We'll see.   The plan is to begin the final third of the...

  F inally managed to get out for about 90 minutes midday for the first jaunt on my old Fischer classic skis at a nearby park that has actually rolled trails for skate technique.  Not quite enough snow yet for classic tracks, but that didn't stop many of us from taking a tour through the Mid-Michigan woods.  Quite a few other skiers out early this afternoon.   I was a bit wobbly for about the first 10 minutes, but I soon found my balance and stride, doing pretty well for the first outing this season.  Some nice glide and no wipeouts.  Even managed a few tricky downhills.  Yes!!! Besides yoga and meditation with the Grand Duchess, there is nothing that makes me feel as happy and at peace as cross-country skiing.  Except a ski tour with her. . .  Or shiny toy soldiers, fresh coffee, and cats in no particular order.  It was not so today, but plenty of couples skiing is on the way over the next few months along with the Young Master, wh...

  E xactly 20 years ago -- appropriately enough on Leuthen Day 2005 -- the idea that became the Grand Duchy of Stollen hit me like a bolt out of the blue as the Grand Duchess Sonja (a professor of German and Eastern European Studies) baked a stollen for her German language students across the hall from my old office ("The Purple Room") in the apartment/flat we had at the time in Bloomington, Illinois just two blocks from the university.   The butterflies were thick that day.  It was a snowy, cold Saturday [actually December 03, 2005. . . NOT Leuthen Day].  Final Exam Week was poised to start in a couple of days.  I was sitting at the computer happily reading about toy soldiers on one or another online forum.  I had recently discovered the now defunct Yahoo Old School Wargaming Group along with Henry Hyde's original Battlegames  site, just before the much missed magazine came into being, and Phil Olley's original  Phil's War Cabinet sites al...