12,000+ Visits to The Grand Duchy!!!

Hello there, men! Just a brief note to say thanks to all who have made the Grand Duchy of Stollen a part of their web routine during the last year. The Stollenian court and its ministers extend a hearty “Thank you” to one and all.

The Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II (at left) is very pleased to see that tourist numbers have rounded just over 12,000. Indeed, this is seen as one of the reasons for his return to semi-normalcy. In recent weeks, his doctor and advisors report, the Grand Duke has even begun to take a greater hand in the day to day affairs of state here in Krankenstadt Palace.

While those closest to the Grand Duke report that it is still difficult to coax him from the recently laundered and pressed lobster costume (his intermediary Roman senator’s toga having been discarded – at least for the time being), Irwin-Amadeus seems to have left the malaise of early summer behind. Of course, there is always hope that he might be lured back into a manner of dress more suited to a ruler of Stollen.

The Grand Duke also wishes it to be known that he looks forward to (re)establishing relations with his imaginary 18^th century neighbors directly. And there are even rumors that he will lead a small force of reinforcement into the field, to join the observation corps already in place along the southern frontier between Stollen and its enemy, the Electorate of Zichenau.

Visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen can also look forward to a retrospective, of sorts, for the passed year here very soon. For now, it’s back to trimming the mold lines from that huge batch of Revell 1/72 Austrian grenadiers. Charge!

Comments

Stagonian Jeff said…

"Send him those scientific treaties on the habits of lobsters"

"Immediately, your Majesty."

"And, Rudy, make sure that it can't be traced back to us."

"Of course, your Majesty. Those are elementary precautions -- which I always use."

5:37 PM

meadows boy said…

Congratulations from the Grand Duke of Davidsberg!

cheers

David

7:16 AM

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 ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text . I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well. Now, we're getting somewhere. I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas, Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that." -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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