Looks like my work is cut out for me. . .

As my Grandfather used to say many, many years ago, “Happy Day After!” He then toasted us with his usual scotch and water on ice.

The last couple of days have indeed been great days here at Stollen central. First, issue #10 of Battlegames arrived with the mail on Christmas Eve. Early perusals reveal that it’s another triumph filled with all kinds of interesting stuff. I look forward to examining the magazine more closely in bed this evening.

Even better, guess what was waiting under the Christmas tree yesterday morning? Not only did the Grand Duchess Sonja have 80 RSM95 Prussian fusiliers (men, officers, NCOs, and a mounted colonel), carefully disguised in a Famous Barr shirt box, but her parents Nan and Dave sent more than 30 RSM French musketeers in the firing pose along with officers, NCO’s, and a mounted colonel! I was so overcome with surprise and joy that I was simply without words for quite some time.

To say that the RSM figures are lovely is an understatement. The Prussian fusiliers resemble the grenadiers in pose, stature, and equipment. I’m already planning ahead to paint them in white coats with some kind of colorful facings and smallclothes plus the beautiful fusilier caps. The French musketeers are in the firing pose and resemble the red-coated “Willie” Irish troops shown on the front and rear covers of Charge! So much so, that they will be painted in the same or similar uniforms, depending on how well I can discern uniform details. Sigh. It looks like I’ve got my work cut out for the next several months. Life is just so unfair sometimes! ;-)

Best of all, the Grand Duchess Sonja and I had a lovely day together that included many nice gifts, telephone conversations with family members across the country and internationally, a brisk walk in the late afternoon past a house on which we might make an offer, and too much delicious Christmas dinner. We followed with starting a puzzle together on the coffee table. It was a very special time. As I told Sonja over dinner yesterday evening, one of the many reasons I like December so much is that this was the time of year, seven years ago, when I first realized that my feelings for Sonja were turning into something more than simple friendship. So, this time of year is always special when it comes around.

Ok, now it’s back to those Spencer Smith cavalry over on the painting table, ‘cause we’ve got a small battle coming up tomorrow. See you then!

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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