The Next Batch of Hussars. . . Tally ho!

Not much to look at in the photo above yet, but after a particularly difficult week, I sat down for about 90 minutes last night and enjoyed applying oil washes (over Humbrol gloss enamel undercoats) to a dozen horses in the Minden hussar queue at a leisurely pace. This kind of early 'painting' is always fun simply because there isn't a lot of concentration required.

That, and I have always enjoyed the aroma of linseed oil and other vehicles used with the various pigments to produce oil colors. I suspect it takes me back to a time, very early in life, at about the age of four or five, when I would come home midday from kindergarten and sit on the floor next to my mother's easel while she worked. We would chat about our respective mornings, and my sister and I would watch Mom apply oil colors to her various canvases that she had going at any one time. Funny how the sense of smell can work like that, because that was about 4o years ago! Doesn't seem like it though.

Anyway, I'm reasonably pleased with the results this morning although a couple of the horses are still looking a bit on the orange side, so perhaps a second wash of oil color to tone that Humbrol orange down just a bit. So, after I dress and brush my teeth, it's back down here to Zum Stollenkeller to do that and then apply the flesh and hair to the officer and troopers. If time permits, then GW Goblin Green to the bases and light blue to the dolmans/pelisses/saddlecloths though that last part might need to wait until tomorrow. We'll see how things go.

Finally, a special hello to Martin in Yorkshire, England. Thank you for the delightful e-mail, which I read this morning while having my first mug of coffee for the day. So pleased to learn of your own return to the wargaming hobby after many years and that you are enjoying the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog. It has certainly added a new dimension to my own enjoyment during the last several years. Please continue to drop by from time to time and say hello.

Ok, I'm off (some might say like sour milk). Have a good weekend everyone, and if you aren't rolling any dice in a game, get thee to the painting table instead, uncap those bottles, and apply some color. Those figures won't paint themselves, you know.

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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