So much to do, so much to do. . .

December is the season of toy soldiers in my book, and some brightly colored cavalry in miniature are always a stirring sight, at Christmas, or any other time!

So much to do, and so little time to do it before Christmas arrives in earnest next. Still a few gift errands to run, and one last batch of grades to submit online today. But, we did get the trees decorated last night, and they are stunning, so the first floor of the house, our front door, and front porch look bright and festive. The Young Master is on the mend today and very interested in the trees this morning. He keeps describing the various ornaments and colors that he notices. . . in English and German! Sadly, his Norwegian lags in third place somewhere, but there is still plenty of time for that to fall into place.

What about those wooden vehicles of his? Well, I got started painting his wooden trucks late yesterday afternoon, and they are looking pretty good, but I need to make a quick trip today to pick up some acrylic paints to finish the job. Hopefully, the wheels will arrive shortly, and then I'll scramble to paint those and attache them to the fleet of four trucks destined for the hearth just beneath the Young Master's stocking on Christmas Morning.

And what of soldier painting? Well, I ran out of time yesterday evening what with the Christmas tree decorating and spending some time with the Grand Duchess afterwards over warm Gluehwein followed by a glass of eggnog. And then suddenly, it was after Midnight! So, I aim to spend time this evening working on the current small batch of five officers. At this point, I fear that I'll fall far short of my pledged 20 figures when 6pm on December 24th arrives, but I'm giving it the old college try between now and then. Once the relative quiet of Christmas Week arrives, I'll have considerably more time for painting and otherwise puttering around down here in Zum Stollenkeller.

In the meantime, enjoy gazing at these two photographs of toy soldiers culled from the internet. They don't have anything to do specifically with Christmas, but as I mention in the first caption above, December is high season for toy soldiers in my mind.

A perfectly ordered row of tin soldiers (British, or Danish Guardsmen?), elegant in their simplicity.

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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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