Skip to main content

On a clear protective coating day. . . You can see forever!

A company of O'Malley's Irish Grenzers in close order as they go through maneuvers in the town square of Kaiserschmarn.


Another company of the same unit, this time in skirmish order under the watchful eye of the company officer and his drummer.


General von Kallweitschen and his ADC Anders Gedacht observe the machinations of their smartly turned out troops. Will they perform as well in the field against Stollen?

This afternoon saw me get to work with a big, soft paintbrush and the Future floor finish. The result? O’Malley’s Irish Grenzers, General von Kallweitschen, his ADC Anders Gedacht, and the battalion of Freiherr Wilhelm’s Pioneers received their protective glossy coatings. This type of post-painting treatment is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I am pleased as punch with the results. The RSM figures, in particular, look like little porcelain figures. I can now retire to bed for the night with a clear conscience and dream about those cuirassier conversions. Sleep well, men!

Comments

tradgardmastare said…
Stokes
figures look great - more power to your paintbrush. I am sure you slept well with contented heart and mind , dreaming of lead ranks advancing across a green table to victory...
Alan
CWT said…
A rainy day clearly holds no perils for these troops on campaign! Good impressive stuff, as usual.
marinergrim said…
Excellent as always.
marinergrim said…
I meant to add - I like the gloss coating for "toy" soldiers and where this effect is desired. Finish is such a personal thing.
Bluebear Jeff said…
I must confess that I like the look that these figures now have. The Future seems to have brought out more "sparkle" and brightness in the figures.

They look very sharp!


-- Jeff
Lovely - how long does the Kleer take to dry by the way?
Anonymous said…
Aaaaargh - I hate blog technology! My comments have just evaporated, so to start again (never as good second time around though).

Curse you! there was I happily painting my plastic Napoleonics when BG13 drops on the mat, with a great plastics article, and OSW to boot. I had dropped HH an article on plastics, but yours is definitely the better, so I will have to update and edit mine again.

Anyway, I post a thread on TMP about the mag, and your article, for someone to reply and point me blog ways. So during yesterday's shopping trip as I watch my son upset my wife, I phone surf my way to central Prussia. This then led to me late last night rummaging in the loft for those boxes of Revells I had bought years ago (in plastics land, I learned years ago to always buy when available, before they are discontinued - avoids so much frustration later, and they act as loft insulation I reckon...). I had undercoated a few, and fleshed some, but had never really got into it (pre OSW days this was). SO, 6 boxes of Prussians, 5 Austrians, 8 Dragoons, 4 Hussars and 8 artillery later (I had planned to use for Saxon Naps, and they had limbers you see...) I was in plastic heaven.

Then, today I have had a good lunchtime "proper" surfing and am both inspired and humbled by your fictional world.

But I wil stop now before this blog post gets too big (do you have an email for more? Or is blog land the way to go?), and will wrap with a big "Thank you".

Regards

Marc (or "Marc the Plastics fan" on TMP
A J said…
Lovely results there, Stokes. I apply Future (Klear in the UK) to my figures and it gives an excellent and durable result.
Fitz-Badger said…
Excellent results as always! I am ever amazed at the detail you tease out of these minis. And, even though I prefer a matte finish on my minis, the glossy look works very well for your style. Well done, sir! :-)
Giles said…
Stokes, these are beautiful. You must be very pleased with how they turned out!

Best wishes

Giles
old-tidders said…
Stokes,

those light troops look really nice; like the offciers too

Allan

Popular posts from this blog

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