A special surprise is in the works. . .

Above, you'll see two newly basecoated figures, which many of you will recognize as Spencer Smith miniatures. What makes these two figures special is that they are not the newer metal figures currently available. . . Nope, these are vintage plastic Spencer Smiths, sent to me recently by my good friend in North Carolina, Jonathan Broadus (Thank you again, Jonathan!). It seems, Jonathan had a couple of spares in his collection that were in need of a good home.

So, in addition to the current second squadron of hussars that is in-progress over on the painting desk, I am painting these figures for the play-by-e-mail game that Jonathan and I will begin on Saturday, November 29th. These two lovelies will become the subordinate officers who command the advance guard of the Stollenian and Zichenauer armies respectively. And what uniforms might take shape before your eyes? Well, watch this space for further painting updates of these classic Spencer Smiths.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I'm looking forward to seeing them "in uniform".

-- Jeff

7:13 AM

Snickering Corpses said…

You're quite welcome, Stokes. I look forward to seeing how they come out. If you take extra photos, perhaps a little lesson on how you go about painting them might be fun, too. I still have to get around to trying to paint mine.

11:20 AM

Bloggerator said…

Probably worth a few $$$, too, going on some recent, crazy ebay auctions...

Sell them, buy the cheap metals!

Greg

12:09 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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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