Some Painting Progress Photographs. . .

Here is a progress photo, showing the second batch of Huzzah figures on the painting bench. So far, just the larger areas and flesh have been painted along with the hatlace, yellow/black pompoms, and musket slings. If there is any time this weekend (doubtful since we have dinner guests this evening and I've got student projects to review and grade tomorrow), I'll start the red facings and turnbacks.

Bad alliteration notwithstanding, here are a couple of promised photos, showing where I stand with the second batch of Huzzah musketeers. Lately, I've been painting in 30-60 minute bursts (I usually prefer a couple of hours between breaks or other activities) when the baby is asleep during the afternoons, or in the evenings after bedtime. The trouble is that I must then read and plan the lesson for the next day of my May Term film course. So, sadly, there has not been as much painting time as I would like. Still, the Grand Duchy of Stollen project is moving ahead even if at half steam, so I suppose I shouldn't grumble too much.

Once the third batch, er, company, and indeed the whole unit, has been completed in early June, it's on to another two-gun battery of artillery and crew, which I'll paint in either Bavarian uniforms or those of Shaumburg-Lippe. What can I say? I like light blue! And then, it's time to get cracking on that 30-figure unit of Holger Eriksson dragoons, purchased last summer and sent to our apartment in Berlin. I've always admired Phil Olley's units of these, used in the Partizan 2006 Sittangbad refight, so I'm excited by the prospect of painting some myself and further reducing the pile of metal here in Zum Stollenkeller.

Now, some of you might remember that, although I've been sorely tempted of late to add some RSM Austrian pandours to the painting queue, plus replace my plastic Revell artillery crews with RSM figures, I'm holding off on any more purchases until I make a more substantial dent in said pile of unpainted miniatures. Chaaaaaarge!!!

And finally, here is a close-up of an infantry private from the same batch under better lighting conditions. Still a way to go, but they're coming along.

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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