A Quick(wash) Hussar Update. . .

 

Still on the sloppy side, yes, but I am pleased with the way the Army Painter Red Tone Quickwash has gone on and settled into the many folds and crevasses of the first 14 Minden Austrian hussars. It helps define the many complicated areas of their uniforms.  Miles of buttons and braid across the chests and pelisses anyone?

Applied carefully with a #6 round brush, an added benefit is that the wash also made helped to made the bergundy undercoat richer. The plan moving forward is to carefully damp-brush plain old red onto the upper areas of arms, thighs, busby bags, and saddlecloths where light would hit while allowing the lowlights to show elsewhere, hopefully giving these exquisite figures their due.  

They're not, say, the 11th Hussars in parade dress circa 1854 before heading out to the Crimea, but hey.  They're hussars!  Might as well go the extra distance with 'em where and when possible.  Right?

I tried a little test application of thinned Vallejo Red to that end on one of the hussars sitting next to Nadasdy in the rear rank last night, and the plan actually worked out pretty well.  As some of you will no doubt agree, that is not always so with even the best laid plans.  The road to hell, good intentions, and all that jazz you understand.

And speaking of Nadasdy, his trumpeter and several horses arrived a couple of days ago, along with a mounted Croat officer, from Minden Miniatures!  I'll probably include them in the next batch of 14 hussars down the road in the late summer or early fall depending on how these proceed and the start of the fall semester/term when the university cranks back into action come mid-August.  

But I still have about a month and a half before then, so let's not talk about that just yet!  It's a sunny, very pleasant Saturday here in the Grand Duchy, and besides some video production, I'm actually looking forward to mowing outside late this afternoon and again in the early evening.  

Early evening in the summer was always my late maternal grandmother's favorite time of the day. There are so many happy memories of the family gathering for coffee after dinner in the side-yard, or on the front porch if it was rainy, chatting and laughing about this or that as the sunlight waned and the chorus of crickets and frogs began their nightly opera.  

Ask sometime about the infamous exploding bowl of Red Slaw in the summer of 1983.

While we lack the Pennsylvania creek that babbled along past my grandparents' house toward the Susquehanna River, we are in the midst of wetlands with thousands of frogs and the crickets here in Michigan.  It's wonderful to sit with the Grand Duchess on the screened backporch just after dark and hear the same sound now so many years later.

But, I digress!  

The next steps at the painting table will be getting the horse markings and tack in order before continuing with the hussars themselves.  Might as well bell those particular cats.

-- Stokes