You see, the thing about long-distance bicycling is. . .

. . . that it boosts your metabolism to such highs that you can wield the paintbrush very quickly indeed. ;-) Sorry Frank, just kidding!

Actually, I am now waist deep in student papers from all of the courses I’m teaching this term, so painting has unfortunately slowed down a bit here at Stollen Central this week. Poor me!

However, I was able to paint the bronze bands holding the musket barrels in the wooden stocks for the 1^st company of Zichenauers, which is now all finished except for the clear coat or two of acrylic varnish. You can see 'em up close and personal by clicking on the photo at the top of this post.

I’ve also included a close-up of Colonel Augustus von Finknottle below. The graininess of his coat (darn those acrylic whites) should be less obvious after a coat or two of Future. Still, I think he’s a dashing fellow at the head of his regiment, “The Newts”. What would Bertie and Bingo say? How about Honoria? And what might Jeeves think?

Last night, I got a jump on the next batch and spent a couple of late hours painting the white coats of the 2^nd company. This is a two-step process, involving a coat of tan, followed by a very thin coat or two of white. The tan provides the shadow, a color closer to raw wool, while the white is the brilliant highlight of course.

I took care to keep the #3 brush and the Ral Partha white very wet in order to avoid the same grainy clumping that bedevils Colonel von Finknottle. I think you’ll agree that the final result is pretty good this time – nice, even coats of white with no graininess.

When I finish wading through these darn papers, it’s onto the white shirt cuffs peeking out the ends of the coat sleeves. And then the purple facings and turnbacks, followed by the crossbelts, etc. I’m trying to break up the obvious monotony of painting an 80-figure regiment by jumbling the process enough to keep things reasonably interesting.

Ok now it’s off to bed. Oberfeldwebel Klatschen sagt, "Gute nacht männer und schlaffen Sie shön! Zzzzzzzz. . ."

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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