Coming Soon: Photos of the First Dozen Finished Cuirassiers!

The title says it all really. One more coat of Future/Klear acrylic floor finish this evening and then a couple of photos of my finished work. The figures look pretty darn good with only a single coat of Future/Klear, but two gives them that porcelain-like appearance that Peter Gilder so liked for his figures.

Agh! My computer has been at the University Tech Services for two days thanks to a virus, which managed to turn off my firewall and anti-virus software and invade my system the other day. Hopefully, it will be ready to reinstall in Zum Stollenkeller this evening after band practice. In the meantime, I'm using the Grand Duchess' new Mac laptop at the moment, which is really nice, but it sure ain't my trusty Sony Vaio PC. And I sure hope my old school book files have not been damaged or lost! :-(

By the way, our heir apparent should be here next Tuesday or Wednesday. Minor complications with Sonja's pregnancy have meant that her doctor has decided to bring the baby into the world about three weeks early, but apparently 37 weeks (today actually) is considered full term. So, a few last minute things to take care of this weekend and then "Tally ho!" as they say.

Comments

Steve-the-Wargamer said…

Yikes!! Fingers crossed, Stokes... hope all goes well for you and the Grand Duchess.

7:17 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

I hope that all goes well for the Grand Duchess and "Little Nimbus".

-- Jeff

8:28 AM

A J said…

Best wishes to you both, Stokes.

9:30 AM

Martin said…

Best of luck to the three of you. All of you will be in our thoughts and prayers here in Raubenstadt, as we await word.

9:42 AM

tradgardmastare said…

All the very best from all @ the Duchy of Tradgardland. We await further news and developments with great interest...
Alan & family

1:10 PM

littlejohn said…

All the best to you and your family. A new baby will trump those cuirassiers for sure but I'm still anxious to see them!

4:06 PM

Fitz-Badger said…

Best wishes to all!

7:12 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thanks for the good wishes, men! I'll make sure to share them with the Grand Duchess, who is having an early lie-down this evening while I play on her computer.

Best Regards,

Stokes

9:14 PM

abdul666 said…

Best wishes for the Grand Duchess and the "Heir".
Btw, forget historicity, the Kuirassier trumpeter looks *so good* as it is!

6:37 AM

Rob Young said…

Our best wishes also re new arrival.

As far as lost files - backup, backup, backup!

Rob

6:07 PM

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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