The Spanish Project Kicks off in Earnest!

In the early years of the 20^thCentury its was thought human race had been saved by a medicinal compound invented by a lady called Lily the Pink. The story is captured in the words of a 1968 song that opens:

We’ll drink a drink a drink,

To Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink

The saviour of the human race

For she invented medicinal compound

Most efficacious in every case…

Supposedly a notorious raunchy version of this tune had existed in the music halls around the time of the Great War.

A little bit of searching on the web sadly showed me that the story on which the song was based was one of quackery. This is probably why the human race has been on its downward slide for some time. But in these early years of the 21^st Century there is fresh hope. A new compound has been discovered.

An alchemist called Aly Morrison has created “Aly’s Brown Liquid”. This is special blend of three and a bit ingredients (not to be confused with that other brew of 11 herbs and spices – the thought of which still turns my stomach from when I ate a bad batch of the stuff after playing an indoor cricket game in the winter of 1991 and haven’t touched it since). Fortunately for us the formula for this magical brew has not been kept secret like that of a certain brand of cola – although oddly the colour of Aly’s Brown Liquid and a glass of that sugary elixir look alarmingly similar - and can be found here.

I had been intending to mix a brew for experimentation for quite some time, but never had the right ingredients on hand. Last Saturday, when I topped up my GW paint supplies, gave me the opportunity to get those ingredients and set to brewing the stuff – which took all of a few seconds.

My first attempt to use this magical brew has been a roaring success. On the white coats of the Spanish infantry from Second Battalion of the Toledo Regiment below (whose flags are somewhere between Spain and New Zealand), it provided a much more subtle shading than I had been using.

On the yellow coats of the Numancia Dragoons (also awaiting thier standard) it also did its magic.

The white shirts and trousers of the gunners in this second gun set similarly benefitted from the application of the brew.

All of this is wonderful since white and yellow are the two colours I dislike working with the most and are the most common in the Spanish army.

I am now convinced that Lily’s compound was indeed quackery and that “Aly’s Brown Liquid”, although not medicinal and unlikely to save the human race, will preserve my sanity while I am painting the white and yellow coats of the Spanish army of 1808.