I hope you've all been good!

And I hope none of you might be expecting a lump of coal in your stocking, or a Birch switch come Christmas morning. ;-) With a certain man's visit to good boys and girls around the world fast approaching, and I have it on good authority that the reindeer have been particularly frisky the last several days or so, here is yet another classic image of Saint Nicholas for your seasonal enjoyment.

For those of you with a more painterly frame of mind, I can report that I did get in about two hours last night to apply a couple of coats of Future/Klear to some more finished fusiliers. I also painted a bunch of bases green and applied flesh to a dozen more faces and twenty-four more hands. Christmas Day and a family visit not withstanding, I plan to slip into high gear with painting, finishing the Action at Pickelhaubewicz with Jonathan, and working some more on my languishing book project in the next week.

Finally, here is a better photograph of the Grand Duchess and me this past Saturday when we played hooky and went skiing in Wisconsin. It was a glorious day!

Comments

DestoFante said…

Stokes,
next time you drove through Chicago, we should arrange to get a coffee together!
I will have quite some traveling over the holidays, from family-in-Florida to family-in-Italy, so I'm afraid there won't be much painting progress for me for a couple of weeks. Good for you!

11:06 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Aha! My sharp eyes have detected the name of the author on a couple of those books that "the Man in Red" is carrying.

The author's name? Why Charles Grant, of course.

May you and your lovely Grand Duchess enjoy a wonderful Christmas Week.

-- Jeff

11:42 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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