Skip to main content

Coming Soon. . .

Four more singly based Minden mounted cavalry officers (for use as aides de camp) are on the way.

While the current weekend has been busier than I would have preferred, I've nevertheless managed to squeeze in some painting time here and there, managing to finish a Minden Prussian dragoon officer and another from the cuirassiers.  Since the coming week will also be a bit tight, you'll just have to wait to see 'em until I also finish two Prussian hussar officers next weekend and have the chance to take some proper photographs of all four figures in the ol' foamcore lightbox.  While the winter cold and snow are great fun, and I managed to ski for a couple of hours both Saturday afternoon and today, I find myself already looking forward to the end of the college term at the start of May, when the pace of life will slow down a little bit, and I can turn my attention to the important stuff. .  .  like painting, a small game or two, some writing, and some actual painting with oils on canvas! 

-- Stokes

Comments

Mad Padre said…
Tis a consumation devoutly to be wished, to be less busy. As a harried graduate student (a surprise turn at midlife), I find myself thinking fondly of the end of term.
Looking forward to seeing what's behind that curtain. :)
7:56 PM
CelticCurmudgeon said…
Ah...end of term! For some twenty five years this was the course of my life - work all out for both fall and spring terms and get little done that was pleasurable. After the posting of grades at college there was a deep breath long enough to get ready for year's end at my day job in public school. Come the last week of June I left looking forward to sleeping in and not spending a day without painting figures or having a game.

Enjoy while you can. The failings of arthritis and poorer vision will make such efforts much more difficult in later years. I speak from experience.

And I share Michael's sense of anticipation about what lies behind that curtain!

gerardus Magnus
Archbishop Emeritus
10:49 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
6 comments
Read more

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!
35 comments
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more