Waiting in the Wings. . .

Various recently arrived Minden figures along with a lone Eureka Saxon grenadier in the back plus some odds and ends added to provide visual interest. I'm not sure whether the fellow kneeling over the deceased musketeer is cocking his musket, or pausing to rifle the body for plunder before continuing on his way.

Any available free time today (the Grand Duchess is away at a conference, so it is just the Young Master and myself all weekend) shall be devoted to adding the groundwork to the various bases beneath those frolicking aristocrats, their servants, and their picnic table and crates. However, there is little time to waste to and much to be done before my current obsession with small tableauxs is cured.

From left to right, Hives and the Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus looking over the shoulders of two engineer officers, along with aunts Irmgard and Waltraud. These two scenes in miniature are intended to go along with the larger frolicking aristocrats scene although they can certainly stand on their own too.

Minden Austrian officers debating some point or other. These are destined to become a small group of opinionated, though woefully uninformed and ill-advised, engineer officers. If the stars line up properly, I should be able to paint them quickly: basically just basecoat of acrylic gesso, tan undercoat, white highlights, with red small clothes and facings. Plus faces and the horse. . . of course.

And here are the Minden and RSM95 figures destined to become a reinforced company of pioneers/sappers/miners/what-have-you. Again, they SHOULD be fairly quick and easy to paint, but we'll see how things actually transpire in the coming weeks. Gotta love those Austrian uniforms!

And besides the figures pictured above, I've made the decision to tack down all of those previously painted RSM and Minden general and ADC figures -- save for a few who will remain singly based to function as ADCs -- to bases, in twos and threes, over the next month and apply some scenic ground materials, to add yet more visual interest for my tabletop. Can full terrain ala the Wargames Holiday Centre be far off? Mmmm. . . . Nah! I like my old school bright green table. It's just got that certain indefinable something about it, but having a number of interesting little scenes spread around -- besides the large units of figures and scenery of course -- really adds to the overall visual impact of the thing. Hmmm. That's starting to sound like something Charles Grant Sr. once wrote.

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

Gallia said…

Your vignette project is admirable. Lovely ideas and presentation.
Cheers, bravos, applause,
Bill

12:57 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you Bill for you kind words. Of course, I'm scrambling to make that May 15th Painting Challenge Deadline and maybe, just maybe, exceed whatever the modest amount of painted figures was that I pledged to begin with back in January. Or was in February?

Best Regards,

Stokes

2:17 PM

joppy said…

I am enjoying your current trend of vignettes, keep the inspiration coming.

3:46 PM

warpaintjj said…

Me too - I love these little scenes and have a small pile to tackle myself, admirable that you have managed to start and stick with it with such enthusiasm. Thanks and well done,
warpaintjj

6:34 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Please allow me to also say that I like the look of your green table and its terrain pieces.

-- Jeff

2:40 AM

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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