Three Brand New Vignettes. . .

Hot off the painting table, here are the latest three miniature scenes to take their place in the Grand Duchy of Stollen collection.

Most of the day free today! One of the fringe benefits of it still being very early in the semester. Fear not however. I'll get my comeuppance in a few weeks once things become more, and then exceedingly, busy, which is always the way. Still, with the Grand Duchess on campus most of the day, and the Young Master happily engaged building his version of Stonehenge, why not wrap up a few things at the painting table?

'The Thrown Shoe.'

So, here are the three latest vignettes, all using 1/56th Minden figures and mostly painted with my usual Winsor & Newton alkyd oils thinned way down with Winsor & Newton Liquin Original. Smaller details and some limited, fine lining with dark brown have been done with Citadel hobby acrylics as is also routine. I'm also getting a slightly better grasp on photographing the finished figures using my home-made foamcore lightbox from last month, three 100watt daylight "bulbs" (actually those ugly corkscrew looking "green" thingies) bouncing diffused light around the inside of the large box, and my Sony Cybershot camera.

'A Suitor Refused?'

Still not perfect photographs, but better still. The trick seems to be to back off beyond Macro range and shoot from between 8"-10" away from the subjects instead of getting as close as possible to the figures (Thanks for the tips Jim and Henry!), which throws some things out of focus in each shot. I then cropped and finally enlarged today's pictures using Photoshop Elements, whose virtues my artist/photographer mother in Mexico has been singing for several years. Still much to learn and perfect, of course, but I'm reasonably pleased with these photographs.

'Von Zieten Sends a Missive.'

What's next in the vignette painting queue then? A mounted Minden Austrian cuirassier officer shouting to a nearby RSM95 infantry officer on foot, Hans-Joachim von Zieten's horse and a dismounted horse-holder (both Minden) in a uniform similar to the one above, another mounted Prussian general (actually a Fife&Drum figure of General von Knyphausen) shouting to a dismounted Minden hussar officer, and finally a Minden Prussian hussar officer and his trumpeter at the gallop, presumably leading a charge.

Then, there are eight singly based Aides de Camp -- consisting of various RSM95, Minden, and Fife&Drum figures -- and at last the decks will be clear for brushwork to begin on the pontoon and wagon train, which should take much of the rest of 2014 to complete. . . Provided the college semester and life do not interfere in the meantime of course. Oh, and I've also just committed to teaching a short summer film appreciation course to high school kids in June or July, so there is some planning for that. But, both the Grand Duchess and I have pledged not to let work overtake our lives during 2014. Let's just see how long we are able to hold on to that lofty ideal.

-- Stokes

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

Der Alte Fritz said…

The piccies look good and in focus. Nice coloring on the civilians.

Jim

5:48 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thanks, Jim! Learning how to take better photographs is a fascinating sidetrip.

Best Regards,Stokes

6:23 PM

Fitz-Badger said…

Agreed, very nice work on the figures/vignettes and the photos of same!

6:36 PM

Andy McMaster said…

Those are lovely little vignettes.

1:40 AM