Vignettes in Progress. . .

The current crop of vignettes on the painting table, featuring a mix of figures by Minden, Fife & Drum, and one or two by RSM95.

Well, the new college semester is underway, but I'm not quite as busy this time around, which means a little more consistent painting time most evenings. First off, it's time to clear the decks by finishing these four vignettes, two of which are intended as multibase scenes.

At the moment, I am at work the various figures in the foreground. Here, General von Zieten hands a message to an officer on horseback (facings and pelisse fur were done after this photograph was taken) while another officer from the same regiment holds onto ol' Hans Joachim's steed and, nearby, a couple of blacksmiths reshoe a third horse. After the Grand Duchess' short research trip to Berlin next summer, I'll have a mobile forge from Berliner Zinnfiguren to add to this particular tableux.

Don't you just love my over-reliance on these French words? Pretentious? Moi? Clearly, the spirit of Frederick II and his fascination with the French language and culture has overtaken me today. Ok, ok. Time to get a grip, Stokes, old boy. There now. That's better.

Moving right along, you'll see a hussar office and his trumpeter just beyond, who are destined to lead the brigade of Stollenian cavalry, followed by a four-figure vignette consisting of two bases, and finally a few ladies and gentlemen on foot. These four figures will join my band of frolicking aristocrats frolicking in the great outdoors and the musicians who provide their soundtrack, all of which were completed last winter and spring. And THEN, it will be time to order those baggage carts and wagons and get started on the pontoon and powder wagons already in the pile of lead courtesy of the Grand Duchess and Young Master this past Christmas. It's a busy time here in Zum Stollenkeller this winter!

-- Stokes

And here's a shot of my waxy palette paper with various blobs of oils that have been thinned way down with Liquin Original. The thinner you get your paints, the easier the pigment runs off raised ares on each figure and settles into recessed areas, providing instant (and subtle) highlights and shading. What could be easier?

Finally, a random mix of RSM95, Minden, and Fife & Drum mounted figures, all of which will become singly based Aides de Camp. Taking my cue from the late Paddy Griffith's Divisional Level Game in Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun (1980), it makes good sense to include a few couriers in my future games.

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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