Seems like I'm not a complete HTML idiot after all!

My conscience hurt me this morning! I had a comment from Jim “Alte Fritz” Purky, imploring me to add a working links section to the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog, something I’ve avoided doing for the last two years. It’s not like others haven’t tried to move me in this direction either. Jeff Huddelson tried repeatedly to help me with the process a couple of years ago, but I just couldn’t work it out to save my life.

Well, as a very wise professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said to me when I was a graduate student some years ago, “Sometimes it just takes a while to mull things over unconsciously and even having a second or third look at whatever type of problem you are wrestling with.” And so it has been the case with simple HTML code!

Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ve added a functioning links section, which you’ll see at right. I’ll continue adding to it as the mood strikes me, but these are my favorites that I check every couple of days. I’ve also added a couple of rather shameless links to my band site – The Indras – and another to my consultancy website. You can also now contact me directly via e-mail, without having to search for it, if you’d rather do that than add your comment to a particular blog entry. So, it seems that the GD of S blog has just become much more user friendly. Thanks to Jim and Jeff!

On the wargaming front, I’ve printed out about 28 chance cards, which feature a selection of really neat 18^th century soldier prints/paintings gleaned from the web on the backside with the random event text on the front side. As per Jeff’s suggestion a day or two ago, I’ll visit Office Max later today and purchase a lamination kit, to make my cards sturdy. They are standard business card size by the way. I’m also going to paint my extra four 2’ square MDF river sections this evening since the Grand Duchess is joining friends to watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The games just lost something for me when the governing body decided to allow professional athletes to participate back in the early 1990s. :-(

So, I’ll have some photos of the finished chance cards, RSM soldiers, and table here for you to ogle here in a day or two. In the meantime, here is one of the prints I’ve used to jazz up my tactical chance cards. Have a nice weekend everyone!

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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