Still Alive and Kicking Here at Stollen Central!!!

Just overwhelmed with various projects at the moment, wargaming-related and otherwise. But the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II, his long-suffering English man servant Hives, and their miniature minions passed the 150,000 visits sometime last night. Hmmmm. . . I can't decide if that sounds like the title of some film noir from the 1940s, or a romantic comedy from the 1990s with Andie McDowell, Meg Ryan, and Hugh Grant. But anyway, thank you to everyone who drops by here often, or occasionally. Your continued interest is greatly appreciated. Look for the resumption of more normal nattering on about painting soldiers and such to resume before too much longer. Now, if only I could find the time to read that latest issue of Battlegames. Charge!

Comments

Robert (Bob) Cordery said…

Congratulations of reaching the 150,000 visit milestone!

All the best,

Bob

10:51 AM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Congratulations indeed, Stokes. That is quite a milestone.

-- Jeff

3:15 PM

Conrad Kinch said…

Well done!

7:40 PM

marinergrim said…

Congratulations.
As a side note. If you have a games console then I'd reccomend L.A.Noire - a game set in Los Angeles in the '40s.

1:04 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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