Coming Soon. . . Minden Hussar Update

An 18th Century painting (ca. 1748) by David Morier, purporting to show grenadiers from Bavaria's Leib, von Seckendorf, and von Preysing regiments. What's interesting is that the blue is quite dark, which seems to throw the issue of Cornflower Blue coats into question. Might that particular feature have been a mid-19th Century innovation that has incorrectly been applied to earlier period uniforms? Thanks Greg!

No photos just yet, but the next four hussars in the pile are nearing completion. Just a few small details on the troopers plus the white markings, hooves, and reins/harnesses on the horses.

In the meantime, have a look at these extremely useful tips on dressing well at the Put This On blog, a site dedicated to helping men dress like adults. I have a look at this almost everyday, and while I knew the basics already thanks to my father and grandfather, I manage to learn something new each time I visit the blog. It's a good read in any case.

Comments

Conrad Kinch said…

Huh. Subscribed.

5:29 PM

tradgardmastare said…

I await visuals of the huzzars with enthusiasm and enjoyed the 18th century painting- stout fellows indeed!
Alan

12:16 AM

Steve-the-Wargamer said…

I came from Britain & we don't have buttons on our vests so I'm lost already.... but they are sometimes made of string.... and sometimes you get matching Y fronts in the same material..... so far I've managed to avoid them, here's hoping that as I head into my dotage I don't succumb... yee gods, man, he calls a weskit a vest!

PS. :o))))

1:53 AM

Funny Little Wars - Garden Campaigns said…

Thank you for the Bavarian picyure - I will be working on four x 54mm Battalions of Bavrarian infantry for a Lace Wars game and am struggling with the cornflower blue. I think I should go darker...

Paul

6:46 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...

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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