A bit nippy here in Zum Stollenkeller today. . .

A somewhat atypical image for the GD of S blog at this time of year, but nevertheless appropriate as both the Grand Duchess and I await the various gifts we've ordered for each other and the Young Master Paul.

A fun couple of hours at the painting table last night after the Young Master's bedtime. The almost finished Fife & Drum British general and ADC are looking amazing (If I might be so bold) after I redid the dark blue facing colors in oil and fixed the white turnbacks on one of the figures. I also took care of powdered wigs, white breeches and shirtfronts, and reins/harnesses on their steeds plus white markings on the latter's muzzles and legs. Just a few things left to do now, chiefly metallic items and lace plus some touch-ups to their crimson sashes. Hopefully, I can wrap that up this evening. Then, General Pipeclay Higgenbotham-Bulling and his ADC can assume command of a wing of the Stollenian army arrayed just outside Neu Sittangbad. . . after receiving a coat or two of something glossy and shiny of course.

Let's finish off today's post, however, with a Victorian image of Santa Claus/Father Christmas. So far this year, I think that this one is my favorite.

Later. . .

For those of you with an interest in such things, the guide I am using to paint my vignette of British General and ADC can be found in Jon Mollo and Malcom McGregor's Uniforms of the American Revolution (Blandford Press, 1975). It's the very first color plate in the book, following the text, entitled 'British Staff Officers.' Many thanks to Rob G. for sending me the image below from Messrs Mollo's and McGregor's book!

Comments

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

Search This Blog