Early Brushwork on the von Hordt Frei-Infanterie. . .

Half of the figures presented to me by the Grand Duchess and Young Master for Christmas 2022. The first half were those that became the Ansbach-Beyreuth Jaegers during the summer months. As usual, the photographs have been brightened and cropped, but otherwise are as is.

Despite all rumors to the contrary, things have not become entirely moribund here in the Grand Duchy of late. The usual mix and intrusion of work and real life, you know. But I have managed to find the odd 60 minutes here, 30 minutes there to work on my generic company of frei-infanterie (based loosely on the Von Hordt Infantry) as and when time permits.

Here are a couple of Saturday morning photographs to illustrate where things stand at the moment. Still lots of small details to do, with the usual touch-ups, but most of the basic colors have been blocked in at this point.

The paints used have been all acrylics except for the initial flesh tone, which was my usual Winsor & Newton Griffin alkyd oil preference. It yields a nice, well, fleshy result, to which I then apply a flesh wash to tone it down a bit. The Army Painter wash, moreover, settles into the facial and hand details, as washes do, bringing everything nicely to life. Otherwise, a happy mix of old Ral Partha, Citadel, Vallejo, and Army Painter colors and washes has been used thus far.

Contrary to predictions, today has dawned bright and sunny, so mowing will need to take place once things dry out on the lawn. Sadly. The forecast was originally for a rainy day, and I had hoped to spend it ensconced in my painting chair, but needs must I suppose. So, it will be evening before I can get back to these. But they are shaping up nicely I think, and I hope to have them finished by October's end.

Then, it will be time to review my painting plans outlined in a post last January and continue the brushwork. I also hope to have a solo affair -- Let's call it a comfortable wargame -- during the long US Thanksgiving weekend in late November, As stated in an earlier post, the Young Master is free to join in if he wishes, but I am not planning on it given his mercurial and capricious nature in recent months.

-- Stokes

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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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