And here they are -- the 7th (von Flickenhoffer's) Fusiliers!

For your viewing pleasure, here is the fourth company of fusiliers -- all done and varnished with two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish. Nice and shiny they are too! On a few figures, you'll notice, I need to retouch the green bases, but that will only take a few minutes when I sit down after supper this evening.

Here is a somewhat close-up shot of the company NCO and a few of his charges as well as the 3rd company to their rear. Two coats of clear glossy varnish seem to approximate that Peter Gilder-esque look, which I have grown to prefer over the last few years. Two coats are glossier than a single coat too. I read somewhere online that Mr. Gilder wanted his figures to look like tiny porcelain miniatures, hence the glossy finish he used. For a classic wargaming project like the Grand Duchy of Stollen project, that's just the sort of appearance I hope to impart to my troops.

Here is a higher angle, third photograph, showing the entire regiment on parade. And to think, I've only been working on them since last December! Where on earth has the time gone? Well, it has been on again-off again in the intervening months with a couple of games, time abroad in June, and the ever-looming student essays to read and correct plus band activities. Presumably, I could have finished the unit more rapidly without these other distractions, but no harm done I suppose.

And last of all, another shot of the entire unit of von Flickenhoffer's Fusiliers for good measure with Colonel von Flickenhoffer himself atop his lively steed just behind the color party. My, how martial and menacing they appear! Is it any wonder that only three companies of these seasoned troops cleared Saegewerkdorf of blue-coated Stollenians (when the former doubled as vile Stagonia's Du Lepps Fusiliers) in the truncated e-refight of Sawmill Village between Jeff Hudelson and me this past spring?

Addendum. . .

And where do we stand with the Grand Duchy of Stollen project?

Total Painted Figures in Army of Zichenau -- 309/318. . . Only nine hussars (one squadron) left to paint.

Total Painted Figures in Army of Stollen -- 226/433. . . Several units and more mounted officers are left to paint.

Total Figures in GD of S Project -- 751 (Does not include generals and ADCs)

Figures Painted to Date -- 535 (Does not include generals and ADCs)

Painting Half-way Point -- 375.5

And sometime in the night, we rounded the 70,000 visits mark. Thank you to one and all!!!

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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