There's a New Blog in Town. . .

Berliner Landmiliz, 1760. You can see where my mind is headed, can't you?

Breaking News! Phil's War Cabinet is back! Noted wargamer Phil Olley has been hard at work behind the scenes, and it looks like his new blog is going to be an amazing ride chocked full of visual goodies and inspiring copy. Do yourselves a favor and toodle on over to Phil's War Cabinet right now. Have a look around and either bookmark or, better yet, click on 'follow'. This is destined to become one of the greats I'm certain.

In other news, the Battle of the Elbow River has obviously taken a brief hiatus. The Grand Duchess and Young Master returned last week, which has eaten into my available freetime considerably, much as I love and missed them. And then, in a double whammy worthy of a WWF tag-team move, I looked at the calendar and noticed, almost as an afterthought, that it was the final week of summer vacation. Which meant that it was time for. . . the dreaded annual revision of course syllabi. And it's gets better, since I have also had to plan and write a new course syllabus, in addition, from the ground up! A tedious temporal sinkhole at best, let me assure you. Classes for Fall 2013 start tomorrow, Wednesday, August 21st. Need I say more?

Hopefully, life permitting, I can wrap up the game during the approaching weekend and see how things pan out between generals de Latte and von Tschtschke before launching headlong into another three-month painting challenge on August 30th. Or was it September 1st? No matter. Time to get moving on all fronts. Time and unpainted miniatures wait for no man.

Comments

Phil said…

Thanks for the "plug" for the new blog, Stokes.
Phil

1:00 AM

CelticCurmudgeon said…

My Dear Heinz-Ulrich,

I can commiserate with your plight. Many were the lost weeks in August as curricula were prepared and lessons designed. Now that the Church Fathers have consented to my retirement, these thoughts fade into the warm glow of memory. Have a wonderful semester!
Your Friend,
Gerardus Magnus
Retired Archbishop and University Lecturer

10:39 AM

Scheck said…

I also put already a link into my blog to Phil´s Wargaming blog. Thanks for this news.
_Peter

3:11 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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