Looking Ahead to the Next Project. . .

Strapped for time this week, what with the start of the new semester on Monday next (January 9th) and the usual preparation for that. But I did take a few minutes to glue down a company of jaegers to their Litko 3mm ply bases last night before my own bedtime.

I've gone this time for a mix of singletons and small vignettes on ROUND bases to represent light troops in more open order that can be sprinkled around the peripheries of tabletop battlefields. Contrary to expectations, I like the look quite a bit.

So much that I will probably give my envisioned company of generic 'Double Blues,' which will form the other half of this composite light battalion, similar treatment when the time comes. Hmmm. I've also got a third, as yet unpainted, company of Croats that could do with a similar presentation.

But that is putting the cart before the horse and deviating from The Plan before we even get started in earnest. Someone swat that butterfly, please!

In the meantime, I must gloss and base Austria's Wied Infantry at the back during this weekend. You'll note the painting bases stacked in the background.

Again, my favored 3mm ply from Litko, which to me provide just the right look for my units once everything has been cemented into place and -- in the case of light units, command vignettes, and other one-offs -- given the minor terrain features One-Two.

Which is to say, some sparse grass, maybe a bit of scrub or small brush/bushes, a tree stump or possibly a short length of log. You know, for added visual interest and help set the scene of jaegers operating along the edges of woods or some far off flank away from the main line of battle.

-- Stokes

Comments

Pechlivan said…

I'm looking forwards to seeing the finished product. Including some small vignettes in the unit seems like a very interesting idea!

3:52 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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