"Houston, we have lift-off. . ."

Welcome back! Now, maybe things can get back to some sense of normality around here. Gentlemen, meet Herr General Karl Heinz von Dempfenpflug, a mercenary cavalry general, who comes from a long line of Baltic German landowners, who trace their lineage all the way back to the Brothers of the Sword. Currently, he is resting on his family estate somewhere in Livonia, weighing offers to accept cavalry commands from both the Grand Duchy of Stollen's Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II and the Electorate of Zichenau's Princess Antonia. Rumor has it that von Dempfenpflug can be had for the price of a cup of coffee and a really good doughnut. We shall see if this is indeed the case.

Comments

tradgardmastare said…

A man to be reckoned with me thinks - and with a noble lineage.
I await further developments with interest.
Alan
p.s good to have you back amongst us . Is a figure planned for the aforementioned gentleman?

2:06 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

Welcome back to the land of the blogging!

It is good to see that you are back with us. I hope that you and the Grand Duchess are enjoying your new home . . . yes, that means that we want to see some pictures.

-- Jeff

4:09 AM

abdul666 said…

Glad to see that life in the Grand Duchy is less hectic again!

Promising times for Stollen and Zichenau..

Best wishes,
Jean-Louis

7:54 AM

Snickering Corpses said…

Great to see you back, Stokes! We should arrange that delayed phone call once things settle for you.

10:53 AM

A J said…

Welcome back, Stokes. =)

Coffee and a really good donut? Hmm, tempting...

9:42 AM

Martin said…

Hey Stokes,

Hope the move went smoothly. Stollen might "sweeten" the offer, by escalating to the jelly-filled level. Good to have you back!

Yours,

Martin

3:59 PM

Giles said…

Stokes

Welcome back to blogland. Hope you are settling in and are making the unpacking of your paints and figures a top priority!

Best wishes

Giles

8:30 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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