"Red skies at night. . ."

“Red skies at night (red skies at night) – Whoa-oh (whoa-oh) – Whoa-oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. . . “. If you remember that cool song by The Fixx from late 1982-early 1983, my hat’s off to you. Why aren't there any groups writing songs like that anymore? Sigh.

Anyway, that’s just what I’m seeing after completing ALL of the red parts of the final batch of Stollen’s Leib (Gand Duchess Sonja’s Own) Grenadiers, during several shorter painting sessions last night, today, and this evening. Everything red – breeches, collars, cuffs, turnbacks, vests, counter epaulettes, and the cloth part at the rear of each mitre cap-- has had a good coat or two of GW Blood Red. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Step #2 was all done. Well, let’s call the most recent sessions Step# 2a. Whew!

For those who are curious about the equipment I’ve used to paint these RSM grenadiers the last few days, I’ve used a synthetic bristle #2 round brush for most of the work, and a smaller synthetic #1 round to finish up the front of the coats. For the collars, I used my sable #001 brush, which has slightly long bristles and holds a fantastic point, perfect for reaching into those tight spots -- like between the left shoulder, upright musket, and left cheek/jaw of these RSM figures.

All colors, except the flesh, are acrylics by Games Workshop, which have amazing coverage properties. Even over a black undercoat. For flesh color, I like Winsor&Newton "Griffin" alkyd color. It's similar to oil-based paints, but dries to the touch in 24 hours. Ideal, in my opinion, for northern European fleshtones. I've had the same 60ml (2 U.S. ounces) for almost seven years and have hardly put a dent in it. I imagine that I'll eventually pass the tube onto the next generation of figure painters in the family. ;-)

Tomorrow, I enter my “blue period” (hee, hee), and it’s on to the light blue coats with the one red coat for the drummer. Then, we’re into the home stretch as far as I’m concerned. See you then!

P.S.

That “Old School” pull (some might call in black magic) is too much to resist! Almost forgot to mention that I’m placing a small order for some Spencer Smith and Holger Eriksson cavalry later in the week, which I’ll have shipped to Berlin for the Grand Duchess Sonja to bring along when she returns home in July.

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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