Finishing Touches. . .

A lone RSM95 grenadier figure amidst quite a few Minden Austrians. The former are slightly cruder castings, but they nevertheless work well along side their crisper brethren. You can even drop one or two carefully chosen figures into a larger unit without raising any eyebrows. Not sure where this one came from, but he is destined to be part of the color party when those are issued at the end of the current 60-figure painting dance (it's a rather slow minuet). Fitting for a grenadier I hope you'll agree.

Took some time a couple of evenings ago to sort through the many hussars and horse castings, organizing them into squadron-sized batches in plastic ziplock sandwich bags. During the process, I discovered something like another eight or 10 of each, which means I might as well plan on a regiment of 64 or so when all is said and done. I know, I know. . . But since I have them, it seems a shame to leave 'em unpainted

In the meantime, it's back to adding a few final details to the current 20 Anhalt-Zerbst figures (the middle batch) before the usual touch-ups ahead of a coat or two of acrylic gloss varnish. I had hoped to get that accomplished just ahead of Christmas, but family life and celebrations took over. Painting slowed further with the arrival of fresh snow during Christmas Week and related local skiing. I'll never pass up the chance to clip into the bindings and enjoy time on the trails with the Grand Duchess and, once he recovers from his teen-aged malaise, the Young Master.

Needs must, right?

Back at the painting desk, and after a quick inspection this morning, it looks like the following items require my painterly attention:

Sword scabbards and hilts/cages
Drum cords, hoops, and heads
Brass Buttons
Touch-ups
Glossing by the weekend anyone?

Now, the start of the spring semester is Monday the 12th, so I've been occupied with updating course syllabi, related materials, and web pages in our learning management system. However, the Grand Duchess is headed to a conference in neighboring Toronto for several days, which frees up some time during the evening hours. The Young Master, at 16, is in that stage of not wanting to do anything with Dad besides grouse about this or that (how deprived he is, how terribly we treat him, how unfair life is, this, that, and the other ad infinitum. . .), so that too frees things up for more toy soldierly pursuits down here in Zum Stollenkeller.

But, it's 8:59am Wednesday morning and time for a refill of coffee upstairs in the kitchen before the Grand Duchess leaves for her drive with colleagues along 401 east to Toronto. And then there are some work-related things to accomplish before returning to the painting table later. I'll see you on the other side of that.

-- Stokes

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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