Some more painting to report. . .

Happy to report that I am almost (just ALMOST) finished with the application of white to this final company of Von Flickenhoffer's Fusiliers. The coats and shoulder belts are now completed, leaving the musket straps and neck ruffles along with the officer's gloves. I'll complete these tomorrow evening before moving onto the mid-blue facings, which are limited to the cuffs only for this particular regiment. So, the completion of this particular step should be a fairly rapid and trouble-free process.

Then, if there is time, and I still feel like it, white wigs for the company officer and Regimental Sergeant Major (a recently discovered an extra fusilier figure I didn't realize I had in the lead pile), with brown hair for everyone else. That leaves only some metal bits here and there, brown musket stocks, and leather bayonet scabbards. And then, I think the entire regiment will be all done save for two coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish.

Could the end actually be in store for our hero? Will he survive to paint another 80-figure regiment? And what evil plot could be the cause of his current painting neurosis? Don't miss the answers to these exciting questions, boys and girls in our next episode! Tune in at the same time tomorrow for the continuing adventures of. . . Old School Miniatures Painting Boy!!!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I'll keep my computer tuned to this station.

-- Jeff

12:43 AM

Martin said…

Hey Stokes,

You might want to consider "Cliff Hanger" as your nome de plume!

8:05 AM

Giles said…

Looking good, Stokes. I find white very boring to paint, so I admire your industry with a whole battalion's worth!

Best wishes

Giles

4:17 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Giles, yes I agree. White is DEFINITELY not the most exciting color to paint. Especially with an 80-figure regiment. I think I have reached that critical point -- painting fatigue, and it's primarily due to white, white, white for the last few months. But, I'm almost finished now.

Best Regards,

Stokes

7:09 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...

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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