Reds, Blacks, and Browns. . .

The second batch of Anhalt-Zerbst figures is shaping up reasonably well. After a number of days of 45-90 minutes painting sessions, the reds, blacks, and (most of) the browns are finished.

Musket detailing with limited highlighting of the stocks is next on the agenda. Time permitting, I might also add the tiny white straps on the flap of the knapsacks hanging over the right shoulders of the musketeers.

The RSM95 grenadier (in bearskin) lacks this particular feature. This particular figures is, you'll note, out of step with with everyone else. Not unlike yours truly.

Let's dub the miniature in question Grenadier Lennert Etwasschraeg, who hails originally from a farming family in the Tyrol. Impressively tall but not necessarily the brightest bulb, his mother nevertheless has high hopes that he might meet a nice Saxon milkmaid outside of Zerbst and settle down.

Once the 60-odd figure regiment is finished, I'll have to place young Etwasschraeg in the second rank behind one of the standard bearers.

-- Stokes

Comments

caveadsum1471 said…

Well, he's an imposing lad so keeping him near the command block would make sense, lovely clean work on these chaps!
Best Iain

4:31 PM

David Morfitt said…

Coming along very nicely, Stokes. :-) Being out of step; oh yes, I know that well. In my first term at university I tried rowing and could never row in time with everyone else. That, and being on the river in the dark and cold in the early morning, was more than enough to make me give it up by the 2nd term!

7:47 PM

Stryker said…

Very nice work and clearly he is putting his best foot forward!

6:31 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you men! I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to clean up edges with yet another application of the light gray I use for an undercoat. While it's highly rewarding to see a unit of figures take gradual shape beneath the paintbrush, there are days when it seems like you'll never get 'em finished.

Kind Regards,

Stokes

9:06 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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