New Lightbox Photos of Old Camp Follower Favorites. . .

A few enterprising soldiers' wives have opened the 18th century equivalent of a Coke stand by a handy roadside along which troops and non-military types pass. The influence of hobby luminaries like Bill Gaskin, Doug Mason, and Peter Gilder, here and in the following pictures, is freely acknowledged. 30mm Willie figures stocked with Eureka and Foundry provisions along with a scratch-built tarp and table.

Sam the Smith and Friends, keeping hussar steeds in tiptop running order. 1/56 Fife & Drum figures along with another scratch-built table.

And finally, here's another old favorite, Margarete the Marketenderin on her way to set up shop opposite the ladies pictured above. A 28mm Eureka set, but the Napoleonic vivandiere has had a headgear conversion. The three vignettes here were all painted in, I believe, 2014.

The enterprising Wolfram the Sutler drives his wagon of goods and sundries to the front. I think this is an Old Glory cart, with the addition of a Fife&Drum driver, painted in 2014. The various bits and pieces comprising ol' Wolfie's cargo come from various manufacturers.

Comments

Neil Moulden said…

Your battle field is going to look spectacular when you have all of the civilian vignettes and baggage trains setting the scene behind the two armies.
Cheers.

3:45 AM

Phil said…

Fantastic little vignette, great additions on a table!

8:29 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you both! Yes. Now, I simply must find the time to set up a game. Easier said than done these days I fear.

Best Regards,

Stokes

10:21 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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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