Latest Dragoon Photo Update on the Way. . .

But in the meantime, here's a shot of the final (and I mean FINAL) building in the Grand Duchy of Stollen, which was constructed a couple of weeks ago and has yet to be painted.

Unlike my previous model buildings, which are composites of various structures across Northern Germany & Northern Europe, this particular model church is actually based on a historical structure that still stands in the old East Prussian town of Allenburg/Дружба (Алленбург) -- now in the Kaliningrad enclave of Russia.

Seems the actual church was not horribly or irreparably damaged during the latter days of the 1939-45 war and has undergone some recent restorative work. Amazingly, it now features occasional Evangelical Lutheran services -- as was the case pre-1945! I haven't been able to learn whether the church has been used for Russian Orthodox service or not during the last 60+ years.

Anyway, I'll paint this final structure in the usual predominant dusty pink-red brick color with a grey-green roof to approximate aged copper plating, and finish with some decorative light gey stonework around the windows and on corners, etc. Unless the mood strikes me to research and build a model of an old North German windmill, NO further construction is scheduled for the foreseeable future in the Grand Duchy.

Instead, it's time to get moving with finishing the core units of Stollen's small army and then continue on to the first 4-5 units to be fielded by the Electorate of Zichenau. After that task is completed, hopefully by late-2007, I'll add some addtional cavalry and infantry units (another 3-5) at a slightly slower rate of painting.

The core armies will consist of the Revell 1/72 plastic figures as you already know, along with that lovely unit or RSM 95 grenadiers. In the longer term, I'd also like to add a unit of Spencer Smiths in the classic marching pose with shouldered muskets as well as a unit of Holger Eriksson cavalry. The latter ain't cheap, so it might have to wait a while. Finally, I'd also like to add some more mounted generals. These will probably come from MiniFigs. Ah -- Decisions, decisions. . .

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Hopefully before long I can take a few photos of some of my (still unpainted) RSM figures.

Their Hussar in mirlton is very nice and I really like my Hanoveran Mounted Grenadiers.

-- Jeff

2:44 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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