A Quick Post Today. . .

The Grand Duchess and I are talking between Berlin and Bloomington via Skype in just a few minutes, so a quick post is in order. The Garrison Prussian artillery crew samples arrived in the mail earlier this afternoon, and they are wonderful. Their size falls between the Revell plastics and the RSM95s the make up most of the Grand Duchy of Stollen collection, and I will send a full order and payment information to Rob Young at Garrison later today or tomorrow. I'm also treating myself to a regiment of Holger Eriksson cavalry, mentioned a few posts back, and will send the order to Peter Johnstone at Spencer Smith Miniatures later this weekend as well.

Whew! Just finished mowing the grass in the front and back, which, since we have had no rain in the last several days, was a hot, dusty job. But it's all done for another week. Finally, in amongst all of the other "real life" stuff currently vying for time, my band The Indras has landed several paying gigs over the next several months. Find out more by visiting our MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/presentingtheindras.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I hope that you and the Grand Duchess have a good chat.

I sent you my orders for our Charge game last Sunday night . . . did you get them? Any idea when you'll have time to translate them to the table?

-- Jeff

2:45 PM

John Clements said…

I'm very pleased you like the Garrison figures as they have always been favourites of mine and I used them for most of my active gaming in previous years. I sold mine a while back so look forward to seeing yours when painted up.

3:12 PM

Anonymous said…

Stokes,
If you need rain for your grass, I can package some up and send it over from the UK. We've had more than enough of the stuff.

Steve.

3:25 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...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion. In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life. Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted. Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green. Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs. The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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