Thank you for your interest and support so far!!!

A special thanks to all of you who have gotten in touch with either Greg or myself so far. We are excited about The Wargamer's Notebook, which will be e-mailed quarterly as a PDF to subscribers and contributors around the world. Greg and I spent quite a bit of time discussing and planning it, and we hope it will take off. I have it on extremely good authority, by the way, that the PDF will be high quality, so those who might prefer to do so can print out a copy, and it will look mighty good. Whether you are interested in subscribing, or possibly also contributing an article, get in touch with us forthwith via this email: wargamersnotebook@gmail.com.

Meanwhile, I've got to set up and fight the next battle, solo this time, in my ongoing campaign. The table has been ready to go for a couple of weeks, but real life (i.e. work) has kept me pretty busy since then. It's also time to make the push and finish the final remaining steps on the six Prussian limber teams that have been in-progress since August.

And last of all, while there are a few small things left to paint before December and the Christmas Holidays are upon us, I have been thinking ahead to 2017. It's time to beef up my cavalry arm, so besides rationalizing and rebasing my existing three-squadron regiments of 30 figures (of which I think there are six), reorganizing them as two-squadron regiments of 30 figures, I plan to paint nothing but cavalry units next year -- a squadron of 12 at a time -- plus the occasional small vignette when I need a break from the temptations of. . . the horseflesh. What can I say? I am a weak, weak man. Time to find and join a group of Model Equine Painters Anonymous I guess.

Until then, there are a few additional infantry drummers, replacement standard bearers, cavalry musicians, and guidon/standard bearers to address once the limbers are done. Don't look now, but I might actually finish my 2016 painting plan for efore the end of the year. Imagine that! But I should look at the list of things to do for this year one more time before making any rash, statements I suppose.

-- Stokes

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Benjamin of Wight said…

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7:59 PM

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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