A Rainy, Dreary Good Friday. . .

Above is the latest batch of figures to get my attention -- the third company of von Flickenhoffer's Fusiliers. Here they are, getting their tan undercoat before the application of white. Just to break things up a bit, I went ahead and started the fusilier caps this time. Completing all of the flesh, hair/wigs, and at least the basic mid-blue and metal plates really helps to make the figures look like something even though there is still much to do.

The title of this post says it all, really. Still, the long weekend is looking up! Clearer, warmer weather tomorrow and Sunday apparently, plenty of time to work on the above figures, time to put the figures into their final starting positions for the Saegewerkdorf Village game with Jeff Hudelson, and maybe time for a bikeride with the Grand Duchess tomorrow or Sunday (and maybe both?).

Plus, my band The Indras is playing out tomorrow evening at the NV Ultra Lounge, an upscale bar about 10 minutes away from here in Normal, Illinois, right next door to Bloomington. Our final rehearsal last evening here in Zum Stollenkeller sizzled as we ran through 25 old rockers in about 90 minutes. If that was any indication of how things will go tomorrow evening, it should be a good show. But for now, I've got a few student papers to catch up on. . . Yes, sometimes those are like the brooms carrying the buckets of water in Disney's Fantasia. They just never stop coming.

Comments

littlejohn said…

wish I could hear your band...break a leg!

--dave

9:33 PM

Bloggerator said…

How was the gig, Stokes?

Greg

6:05 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

It's a strange thing to hear a room full of people cheering. . . By and large the date on Saturday evening went incredibly well, and we might have a chance for a return engagement at some point in the near future. Who would have thought that we'd find a willing audience among a bunch of university aged people? Very strange indeed!

Best Regards,

Stokes

7:54 PM

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 ...

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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