It's been a looooong week. . .

Whew! Haven’t had the energy for much painting this week with all of the back and forth with the publisher who has contracted me to translate that book by a Norwegian author. Reading and approving contracts has got to be one of the dullest things on the planet! Another bit of consulting work I’m involved in has also cut into painting time during the evenings.

So too has bike riding with the Grand Duchess. We have just under 100 miles in the saddle for this week! I’ve actually been on my bike six days out of the last seven, and it’s a funny thing. When you are that physically active, you’re just hungry all the time! And really bushed, so Sonja and I are having a free day (no biking) today, which is good, because it’s rained off and on all day here in Central Illinois.

Another activity that’s taken away from painting time has been my “old school” rock and roll project. Our band has managed two practices this week and will have at least three in July. So far, it’s been great fun, and collective enthusiasm has remained high. At times, we even manage to lock in together and sound “tight” as a musical unit. . . but this only lasts for a minute or two before we lose the groove. Still, we are enjoying ourselves and expanding our list of songs already, which includes numbers like Honey Hush, Good Rockin’ Tonight, Lawdy Miss Clawdy, and Lucille (yes, the Little Richard number). So far, my voice is holding out well and even getting a bit better dare I say.

About the only wargaming related task I’ve accomplished this week is to move around and “rationalize” my computer files for the unnamed book project that I occasionally mention here. Created another folder yesterday evening and moved all of the research and/or correspondence from other wargaming friends and acquaintances into it, keeping only the 32 text files that will become parts of the book in the folder labeled, appropriately enough, “wargaming book”.

At this point, I have only a few more sections to finish writing. Then, the revision and tying everything together smoothly can begin. When the Grand Duchess asked what kind of self-imposed deadline I had in mind, I replied that I was shooting for early January next year to have the basic manuscript finished. At the present, this still seems realistic. Keep your fingers and toes crossed!

Now, in a little while we are making the trip over to Peoria in search of a new Lebanese restaurant we’ve heard about. If we get home at a reasonable time, I’ll have a chance to finished basecoating those Revell Prussian musketeers with white acrylic gesso. Then, I can move onto the black undercoat tomorrow and apply green to the bases on Sunday. Flesh tone on Monday, and then on to the wigs/hair and various uniform colors. This time, I’m going for fairly simple, utilitarian uniforms in a mid-blue with read facings, much like that worn by Herr Major Anders von Gedacht, who was pictured in earlier postings here. But that’s still a few days away.

In the meantime, have a nice weekend wherever in the world you happen to find yourself!

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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