Cold weather arrives in the GD of S.

A lovely, understated pre-Christmas image today. Father Christmas trudging through the snow, apparently through a thicket of over-sized holly berries.

Much colder today and downright blustery here at Stollen Central this afternoon with high winds as the current winter weather system blows in from the North and West. There may even be an inch or two of snow on the way tonight. Cross your fingers! Or as the Norwegians say "Kryss fingrane!"

We just took the Young Master to visit with Santa Claus/Father Christmas, and the two had a brief, pleasant conversation filled with smiles on both sides, so I suspect both parties fellt good about the experience. Then, we followed with several last minute errands, including a quick trip to the hardware store for tiny washers and screws to attach the wheels to those four wooden trucks I've been making here in the elves' workshop. Then it was onto our local arts and crafts store for a small bottle of glossy Liquitex acrylic varnish to finish the vehicles off once they are all done, a trip to the bank, and one or two other small errands.

Once we were well and truly on our way home in the car, I remarked to the Grand Duchess, "Well, I truly hope to avoid anymore visits to stores until well after January 1st. . . unless we need more eggnog!

Anyway, the four wooden trucks are coming along well. I painted the blue windows and headlights onto them last night. This evening will see me painting the small wooden wheels with two coats of black acrylic hobby paint and taking care of any necessary touch-ups. I'll also provide some small details with some light gray paint, Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, I'll finish up with two coats of glossy varnish on each truck and then drill holes and add washers and the wheels on Saturday. Watch for photographs of the finished trucks then. And then, who knows? Maybe, I can snatch some soldier painting time here and there before Christmas Eve.

Later. . .

Oooo, the snow and blowing has begun! We are currently under a blizzard warning here at Stollen Central. Bring it on!

And here is a second image that I found trawling the 'net just a little while ago. Kind of unusual in its relative plain-ness, but I like it. It reminds me of the fires we always had at this time of year in the huge walk-in fireplace that was in the dining room of my maternal grandparents' colonial-era fieldstone farmhouse in Berks Country, Pennsylvania.

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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. . .

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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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