A Seasonal Curiosity. . .

Here's a Space Race-era card from the former Soviet Union of all places. I can almost here "Moscow Nights" -- the old Radio Moscow signature tune -- playing softly in the background.

Happy Saturday everyone! Wherever you are in the world, I hope you have the chance to put up your feet and think about toy soldiers for a few minutes, or maybe even do some painting, or have a game.

And so, onto the seasonal image for today. Here's a rarity, a Soviet-era Christmas greeting card that I found online recently. Or maybe it's was intended for New Year's since the official Soviet line, of course, rejected religious observance and associated festivals. This one caught my eye thanks to it's Cold War era styling, the Space Race, and all of that. It also reminded me of that ancient Japanese TV cartoon Astro Boy. Anyone remember seeing that?

Today, I have a couple of errands to run, relating to the run up to Saint Nicholas Day (Sunday, December 6th) and Christmas. Need to send a few things to my mother and stepfather in Mexico, and then maybe I can get in some soldier time this evening, the Grand Duchess and Young Paul willing. The latter actually let us sleep for five straight hours at night without any "requests". At any rate, the nine cuirassiers await their second coat of Future/Klear, and then there is a photo to take and post of them. Finally, I need to basecoat General von Tschatschke and his ADC. So much to do and so little time. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Comments

tradgardmastare said…

stokes
I have had time to contemplate toy soldiers ( amidst the melee of kitchen reinstatement and sundry chores) my thoughts being shared betwixt A Very British Civil War ( alternative 1938)and 19th century Charge. Both being good places to go if only for some planning...
In Tradgardland we have already anticipated the visit of St Nicholas-http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/

Have a great weekend with the best hobby there is!
Alan

1:43 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 ...

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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