First Batch of Zichenauers Nears Completion!

The title says it all. I am almost finished with slightly more than one quarter of the 80-figure Ermland Grenadiere Garde regiment. And you know? They don't look half bad. So, three cheers – Hip, hip, hip! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

The next painting session should see these babies all finished save the clear coat of Future acrylic floor polish. The remaining items include: silver musket barrels and bayonets, brass musket fixtures, officers’ gorgets, mounted colonel’s sword, brass scabbard tips and sword hilts. Oh, and I mustn't forget the few bits of brass hardware on the furniture of Colonel von Finknottle's horse!

Things went so swimmingly this afternoon and early evening that I pressed on and attached the flag, recoloring its horizontal stripes. I wanted something eye-catching, so I used a number of different colors to alter the real Baden-Durbach regimental standard. I’m very pleased with the results. So, barring any delays, by Wednesday or Thursday, I should be at work n the next batch of 19 figures of this monster regiment! Oh, the pain of it all, the pain. . .

Comments

old-tidders said…

Those grenadiers are going to be a nice looking unit - the flag really looks good with them

-- Allan

7:06 AM

Betts-Davittovich said…

In fact the language of Jordicken is closer to saxon/scandonavian mix, thought to be decendants of a Russ tribe who having settled in what is now northern Russia were pushed out and took refuge in this valley where they gained a germanic influence, a little interbreeding led to a strange and mixed up tongue thus the odd "ovich" mixed in with "stien" and "stade"

9:22 AM

abdul666 said…

Bravo! Keep courage!
Jean-Louis

11:47 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

The flag does look good . . . as, of course, do the men.

-- Jeff

1:42 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you men! Your continuing interest and support keeps me going.

Enjoy the day,

Stokes

2:33 PM

Frank said…

Aww Stokes I want to kick your butt!
I am so jealous of how you crank out these superb looking fellas in vast numbers, while I crawl along at a snails pace.

However, as always your army is inspirational, so I keep slogging on. Keep up the good work, they look terrific!

Frank

5:26 PM

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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