Stollen, stollen, stollen. . .

Here's another old image of Santa Claus/ St. Nick/ Father Christmas for you. Oddly, his coat seems to have a distinctly rose hue to it in this illustration. It seems General von Tschatschke was the start of a discernible trend. . . even in non-military circles!

Fresh, crumbly Dresdner Stollen, hot coffee, and some time to paint soldiers. It was a lovely weekend indeed! Yes, the Grand Duchess baked one of her famous stollens yesterday evening, and we enjoyed a few still warm slices along with fresh black coffee late in the evening as we watched a bad romantic comedy (aren't there a lot of these?) on DVD while Young Master Paul dozed between us.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a few hours to myself -- the Grand Duchess and son attended a ladies only pre-Christmas beading party -- to begin work on the remaining cuirassier figures. So, it was faces, hair, green bases, and another black undercoat for the horses. If time and child permit today, the horses will get their dry-brushing of dark blue and leather colored girths and then maybe the tiny metal bits on their halters and martingales. Thanks for the spelling help, Jeff!

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed on the time/painting plans. Realistically, it will probably take two evenings to do all of this. Not that it's really a huge amount of painting, mind you, but free time is a scarce commodity these days here at Stollen Central. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to return to the kitchen for another slice or two of you-know-what!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

I'm not a "horsey" person, but the word is spelled "martingale".

Enjoy your stollen!

-- Jeff

12:50 PM

Poacher said…

Lovely stuff, and great picture too.

As for the little ones, you soon get used to working around them!

But beware; once they become mobile, all paints and stuff have to be carefully guarded!!

I had to paint in the loft room for almost fours years! :-)

1:18 PM

tradgardmastare said…

Does the Duchess have a good recipe for leibkuchen by any chance- family off from Friday and I feel they are itchig to bake...
Alan

11:56 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Hi Alan,

I'll ask her.

Best Regards,

Stokes

10:50 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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