Vitally Important Painting Updates

So what's been happening in the Grand Duchy of Stollen lately? To borrow a word from Jacob Marley's ghost, "Much!"

Currently, Oberfeldwebel Klatschen is leading the Golden Grenadier Painting Competition by two votes. As I wrote in response to Jeff Hudelson’s comment here a few days ago, “Come on, come on, come on! Go Oberfeldwebel Klatschen! Ruuuuuuunnnnn!!!

Otherwise, I’m almost there with the first batch of RSM95 grenadiers. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get too much work in during the last couple of days due to writing, teaching, and family commitments.

The Grand Duchess Sonja sang in a municipal chorus last night, supporting an Illinois state symphony through a production of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony (you know, the European Union anthem) here in Bloomington at the new Center for the Performing Arts. Needless to say, it was a rousing evening of music that was over all too soon. And we were able to walk home – no parking woes necessary!

Tonight, Sonja’s choral group is off by chartered bus to repeat the performance in Springfield (the capital of Illinois for you non-US residents), so I’ll have several hours to work on the RSM figures as I’m not expecting Sonja home before midnight or 1AM Sunday morning. Meanwhile, I’m quite sure they’ll be living like rock stars down in Springfield, like the Who or Van Halen in their heyday – TV’s out of hotel windows, limousines driven into swimming pools, chorus groupies, etc., etc. ;-)

All kidding aside, here’s what remains of the grenadiers for me to paint:

* Bayonets/officers’ sabers/musket barrels/flintlocks/metal fronts on mitre caps (silver)

* Whalebones on rear of enlisted men’s mitre caps/drum cords (white)

* Scabbard tips, short sword hilts, badges on ammunition pouches. Drum shells (brass)

* Mounted colonel’s horse (white) and saddle cloth (red, trimmed light blue)

* Standard. A basic Hessian model from Warflag, but heavily altered by careful and judicious use of acrylic paint colors, so that it more closely resembles that carried by Brigadier Young’s famous Erbprinz/Poltava Guard unit as seen in Charge!.

I think that’s about it. Of course I’d like to think that I can get everything finished today, but realistically, I’m guessing that we’re looking at another 2-4 days of work to get these figures finished. I’ll keep you posted in any case. Stay tuned right here for further developments!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I'm staying tuned . . . and give my best wishes to the Duchess as well as my congratulations for her singing.

-- Jeff

11:48 AM

Snickering Corpses said…

Add my congratulations and best wishes also!

5:46 PM

marinergrim said…

Sings, cooks, writes. Is there anything your good lady can't do?

Congratulations to your lady.

3:44 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

And she repairs bicycles too ;-)

Best Regards,

Stokes

5:08 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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog