Painting Holger Eriksson Replacement Figures. . .

One of John's figures is at the rear, with my two replacements in the front. Not a bad job of matching John's painting style if I do say so myself. I should have gone into art forgery.

Spent a fairly quiet Saturday yesterday reading/grading a few student papers and painting a couple of replacement Holger Eriksson figures. Well, one replacement, and an extra officer since I like and even 30 figures for my cavalry regiments, which can be divided into two large squadrons with staff, or three understrength ones as per the organization suggested in Young and Lawford's Charge!

I have no clue what paints John used to paint his figures, but I am pleased with the way I was able to more or less match his painting style with Citadel acrylics and alkyd oil fleshtone. I added some very thin gold edging to the officer's saddle cloth late last night, but otherwise I am calling these done and ready for a couple of coats of acrylic high gloss varnish.

Speaking of done, those 22 RSM95 and Minden musketeers are also just about completed. Only the gaiter buttons (groan) and the standards with their poles and finials left to address now. Watch here for a Kodak moment update or two in a few day's time.

-- Stokes

Comments

Independentwargamesgroup said…

Nice job Stokes.

11:58 AM

Pierre le Poilu said…

Nice cavalry - I really like the HE figures

12:16 PM

Neil Moulden said…

The easiest way I have found to do buttons is with a wooden tooth pick. I find it much quicker than with a brush an leaves nice little round button shaped blobs.
Cheers.
Neil.

12:40 PM

johnpreece said…

They look like a good match to me, but what do I know.

The colours used were pelican plaka poster paints that I bought in the early eighties. I have no idea if they even make them now, but the hues were so intense and bright that I have never found a replacement to equal them. All dried up now though.

thanks for your kind comments
John

4:54 PM

Unknown said…

They look a really good match. I don't have any Holger Eriksson figures but I've always admired them. As for gaiter buttons, I am an idle painter and just don't bother. Shame on me I know...but what the hell!!
Best wishes,
Simon

4:33 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Well, normally I don't bother either with black gaiters, but someone had the bright idea of giving these fellows white this time (smacks forehead several times in frustration). Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Best Regards,

Stokes

4:53 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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