Ah, another 29th birthday. . .

A rather idealized portrait of the Duke of Cumberland.

Today is again my "29th" birthday -- funny how quickly these seem to come around -- and, in celebration, I've ordered myself three new Richard Ansell sculpts, sold by Crann Tara Miniatures in the United Kingdom. With any luck, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Albemarle, and Henry Hawley, plus their steeds, should wing their way to my doorstep before too many days elapse. Once here, they'll form another wonderful little staff vignette, which I'll paint up during the long Christmas Break. I'm looking forward to it. Can you tell? The remaining six wagons and carts are just about done by the way, and afterwards, there is a rather large regiment of RSM95 infantry in the painting queue. Sigh. No rest for the wicked!

-- Stokes

Later. . .

Thank you for your kind birthday wishes, everyone! It has been a low-key, but nonetheless joyous birthday celebration. In silent observance of the occasion, I even wore a recently acquired double-breasted, drape cut wool flannel suit in cream and charcoal Glen Plaid to campus today. Admittedly, I felt a bit less like Cary Grant and more Jimmy Cagney, or perhaps a young Edward G. Robinson (but taller), albeit without the requisite fedora and nickle-plated heater inside my coat. "You dirty, rat! You killed my brother! Yeah, you! See? Yeah!"

Undoubtedly, I looked like a complete freak to my students (we don't see too much of this sort of thing in my neck of the woods, you know), but I felt good, and this must be one of the most comfortable suits I've ever worn. It's almost like having nothing on at all, and yet it is surprisingly warm on a blustery, raw day like we had today. Sorry, guys. No photographic evidence since the darn battery was dead in the camera. Next time, ok?

An early dinner out with the Young Master and Grand Duchess followed this evening, and then chocolate cake, cards, and a few gifts at home afterwards. These included the recently released Maurice de Saxe vignette from Minden Miniatures, given to me by the Young Master, and some of the new limber horses and civilian riders (to finish the supply and pontoon train) as well as some of the agricultural laborers, from the Grand Duchess. As I always say, a birthday with model soldiers, especially when they are as high quality as these are, is a good birthday. Come on Christmas Break!

And the 28mm version of the Duke by Crann Tara, soon to be making its way to Zum Stollenkeller along with Lord Albemarle and Henry Hawley.

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

Search This Blog