Clanking Back into Action. . .

Human and basic horseflesh almost finished. A mix of Minden, RSM95, and Fife & Drum figures. Look closely. Can you pick out the RSM95 conversion?

As predicted some weeks ago, the current academic term is indeed a bear, and it seems like there is always a new batch of student papers to read and grade. Whew! So, finally, three weeks into the current painting challenge, I got off my you-know-what and sat down to the painting table for a couple of hours earlier this afternoon to work on a second round of staff vignettes for the Stollenian and Zichenauer armies. These will be painted, more or less, in Prussian, Saxon, and American Continental Army uniforms.

Anyway, a delightful time was had slopping on oil-based flesh and various browns, which were thinned down with Liquin Original. Now, the real work begins as I take care of smaller details on each base, painting one at a time to completion before moving on to the next. Sadly, we are joining a few friends for supper this evening, which normally would be nice. But, between you and me, I'd rather get into my pajamas after dinner and the Young Master's bedtime and steal away back down here to Zum Stollenkeller to resume painting. You know what I mean?

Later. . .

I was greeted this Sunday morning by the delightfully faint aroma of oil paint and Liquin when I opened the door to Zum Stollenkeller with coffee in hand . The sun is out, the air is cool, and the house is still. For the moment, at least, all seems right with the world.

Comments

CelticCurmudgeon said…

My Dear Heinz-Ulrich,

Everyone needs a calm moment of reflection away from the pressures of society. I, too, love the ability to simply clear my mind and place glorious colors on wonderful toys. And even better is the time when this can be done with a hot cup of coffee on the table. Just avoid repeating my silliness of absent-mindedly dipping the paint brush into the beverage.
My very best for a totally joy-filled autumn!
Gerardus Magnus
Archbishop Emeritus

10:41 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...

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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