Wagons Ho! -- An Update. . .

Most of the wagons and carts are now mostly assembled although there are still a few tiny bits and pieces to cement together on the two wagons in the background next to the Humbrol enamels and the two wagons in the foreground. In addition, the two open-sided hay carts, drawn by the oxen, are due to have their 'ribs' (for want of a better term) cemented into place. That particular step should be a huge pain in backside, so I'm avoiding it at the moment.

The pontoon and supply trains are taking gradual shape. Since a brief adolescent foray into Revell plastic model car kits 3+ decades ago -- I went through a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray phase with I was 11-12 years old. Farrah Fawcett Majors' "Foxy 'Vette" in silver-gray plastic anyone? -- I had forgotten how you've got to assemble multipart models bit by painstaking bit. Which requires holding your breath, of course, as you carefully glue a few tiny pieces into place and back gently away from the painting table, so you don't disturb anything.

And then, you must then go away for 24 hours or so, returning the next evening to continue with another phase of assembly. Since even instant bonding super glues and gels take a while to cure and set fast, and that's if you don't get a minute wagon axle or something stuck fast to your eyelashes in the meantime, it's taking several days to get all of this stuff assembled for subsequent base coating, painting, glossing, and limited terrain treatment of bases. However, I must admit that I am enjoying the journey for the most part.

So, here is where things stand currently. I have been, these last few days, interspersing work on another Norwegian to English translation of an essay by the late author Stig Saeterbakken (first draft finally wrapped up a short while ago) with the various stages of wagon and cart assembly. A little cementing here, a little translation there, and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum. Don't you just love Latin phrases?

Thus far, things have gone reasonably well, and you'll notice very few superglue induced fingerprints on any of the parts. That has, in turn, meant that the anticipated muttering and cursing under my breath has been minimized. Jeeze Louise! If I'm not careful, this could become a habit. In any case, time for another late afternoon mug of coffee I think.

-- Stokes

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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