The 2nd Musketeers Are All Painted!!!

I finally completed the 2^nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers last night! They look fantastic if I do say so myself. As soon as I finish the current role of film (this week hopefully), I’ll scan several photos and post them here and at OSW. The only glitch is the flag.

First, the eagle I painted in the center of each side is about the lamest looking bird anyone has ever seen. Second, I think that I’ll cut away the molded flags and poles in future, replacing them with one’s I make myself. But then there is the problem of making a convincing finial for the top of the pole! Anyone have any suggestions? For central designs, I’d like to try some decal transfers like those I’ve seen other’s use in their work, for instance Phil Olley.

Otherwise, I am very pleased with the results of my initial foray into another size and “period” (albeit an ahistorical country and army) besides 15mm Napoleonic figures.

This week, I hope to gradually cover the entire unit in a coat of Future floor polish and then a shot or two of Testor’s Dullcote to kill the shine. I’ve already washed my next couple of units – a smaller battalion of jaegers and two gun crews plus a mounted officer. Next weekend, my wife Sonja and I will go camping for the last time this season, but afterwards, I hope to get cracking on meeting the OSW September Painting Challenge!

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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 ...

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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