Another RSM Paiting Update

Here’s another photo update of the second company of RSM95 grenadiers. In the last two evenings, I’ve managed to get a coat of white on the gaiters and a really nice coat of red on the breeches. If you squint, you can also make out the NCO figure at the right rear of the picture. Before I quit for the evening, I painted his turnbacks and the visible parts of the red lining on the captain’s coat. Tomorrow, I tackle the other 16 figures and maybe paint the vests red too. Then it’s on to the white shoulder belts and the light blue coats.

Although the Grand Duchess Sonja is now ensconced in Berlin, my painting progress has remained slow due to the spring term course I’m currently teaching – The Art of Film Noir: German Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism, and American Hard-boiled Fiction. This is the third time I’ve taught a version of the course -- one I've developed myself, thank you very much -- and judging by the class discussions they have following the film viewing, my current crop of students is enjoying the material.

The rub is that it’s a 3.5 week course that meets for three hours daily, Monday through Friday. We cover a semester’s worth of material (15 weeks) in less than a month, which means lots of reading and preparation every evening. So, I’ve snatched an hour or so here and there, but until June 1^st, it’s not going to be as much time at the painting table as I’d like. Sigh. But, I shouldn’t complain too much, I suppose. After all, in another few weeks, I'll have 2.5 months off to paint and write. So, life ain't all that bad! ;-)

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

It is really amazing how much can be accomplished in those few snatched "short hours".

It doesn't really seem like all that much gets done in any one session . . . and suddenly you're finished.

It will be a few weeks yet before I can get to my painting table. We have to get all of milady wife's portion of the house finished first (as it should be).

But I'm certainly looking forward to when I can get started on my own RSMs.

-- Jeff

2:21 AM

Duchess of Schleiz said…

Ahh, the Grand Duchess is quite pleased at the progress being made on her men, even with snatched hours here or there. (We wouldn't want the cat to feel too neglected after all).

She hopes that Irwin-Amadeus shapes up and masticates on something a little closer to home like smoked cod.

2:51 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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