The Calm before the Storm?

A progress photograph, to illustrate where Irwin-Amadeus II stands at present with the first twelve of thirty Holger Eriksson dragoons.

The von Grandin family has arrived at Krankenstadt Palace, to much fanfare and production! Thus far, the Grand Duke has engaged in a variety of quirky and rude behavior, as Hives suggested, in the presence of his guests, to little apparent effect. Inexplicably, the Lady Leonora Christina von Grandin and her parents remain pleasant, even familiar, and enthusiastic about the expected announcement of an engagement. . . much to the chagrin of Irwin-Amadeus II.

Today, the entire von Grandin contingent has ventured out en masse for some final Christmas shopping and seasonal cheer in the shops of downtown Krankenstadt, leaving the Grand Duke to his own devices for a few hours. Meanwhile, Hives and the rest of the household are busily organizing the scheduled Christmas ball, to be held this evening in honor of the von Grandin family's visit.

Thanks to this disruption of routine, the Grand Duke has been able to steal away to his private study where he continues painting that regiment of Holger Eriksson cavalry. "Oh, I say, these are fun, fast figures to paint." muses Irwin-Amadeus II, "Hmmmm. . . Maybe I'll try my hand at painting a lobster claw on the obverse side of their standard!"

Comments

Anonymous said…

Can't wait to see these guys in action Stokes. Is there to be another battle soon, with photographs?

--Steve

1:28 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Hello there, Steve,

Thanks you! Yes, I hope to stage a small battle (an advance guard scenario) during Christmas Week. Stay tuned. Hopefully, I can get these first HE cavalry finished in time. Keep your fingers crossed.

Best Regards,

Stokes

10:24 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...

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

Search This Blog