Steady Spencer Smith Cavalry Progess. . .

Above, you will observe the first two squadrons plus regimental staff of Zichenau’s Grenadiere zu Pferd, led by Colonel Stein von Pilzenkopf, charging past the edge of Zollamtstadt where they are billeted for the winter. Rumor has it that the regiment was, in fact, not on maneuvers. Rather, they were racing to the other side of town to make the acquaintance of a gaggle of curious peasant girls from several nearby farms outside of town!

Whew! I just finished a marathon session, putting the finishing touches on the middle batch of eight Spencer Smith cavalry as well as going back over the first lot of 12 to add some of the same details which I left out for expediency’s sake last month. Today’s work included the metallic colors (silver and brass) on the swords, sword hilts, scabbards, horse snaffles, and martingales plus a light brown on the leather bits – the girths that hold the saddle on the horse and pass beneath the animal around its ribcage and the stirrup leathers. There were also, of course, the obligatory touch-ups with black to cover a few metallic mistakes due to a caffeinated painting hand. ;-)

In general I’m very pleased with the way these figures are coming along although I have spotted some areas on the horses that need some additional touching up with black before I can give them a couple of coats of Future acrylic floor polish. Since Spencer Smith figures are heavily stylized, it’s important to strive for overall impression rather than minute detail on each piece. While my work will certainly not win any painting competitions, the general effect of the massed regiment is rather nice I think. Just a final squadron of nine figures to go. . . and then I can get to those RSM French musketeers that I was nattering on about earlier today. Charge!

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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