Summer has gone to the dogs around here. . .

Hey, these are the hot, steamy dog days of late August in the American Midwest, right? Anyway, one of you mentioned a few days ago that it would be a good idea to add a dog to the vivandiere vignette that is taking shape (I'm still messing with it before gluing everything in place) on the ol' painting table. To coin the Wooster twins, Claude and Eustace, that's an extremely sound idea. So, I did some digging around and turned up a set of four, different sized mutts, which is available from Westfalia Miniatures for 4.00 British Pounds.

I like the scruffy, animated look of these dogs, and think I'll add the set to my birthday/Christmas list. Or maybe just order them myself before long. Why put the onus, after all, on the Grand Duchess and Young Master if they present me with other gifts, and I'm unable to finish said vignette? That said, there must be other 25-30mm metal canines to be had out there, but I've not had much luck turning up non-cute stuff with basic searches on the web.

-- Stokes

Later. . .

A nicely packed, weighty small parcel arrived in the mail earlier today all the way from a friend Dublin, Ireland, which contained all sorts of small goodies that I'd completely forgotten about due to all of the hub-bub around here this last week with preparations for the start of the new school year. Needless to say, it was a really nice surprise to spy this in the mailbox on the porch when I checked to see if our mail lady had left us anything today. Watch here over the next few weeks to see what else turns up. Oh, and a very special thank-you to Mr. Kinch!

Comments

Fitz-Badger said…

Your post title reminded me of "Veterinarian's Hospital" on the old Muppet Show. ha ha

A few canines around the camp sounds like a good idea.

4:06 PM

CelticCurmudgeon said…

Dear heinz-Ulrich,

Yes, I confess to having proposed that one of man's best friends be included in your vignettes. Canine friends populate scenes in many movies and in earlier art. They make a bit more humane what might be perceived as the horror of war. The picture you chose for the introduction of this blog entry points that up who doesn't love that big furry, happy face?
You must be terribly busy at this point. Always remember to take a deep breath and the mantra at the end of the day - no teacher should go home more exhauusted than his or her students!
Yours in academic comradeship,
Gerardus Magnus
Archbishop Emeritus

7:18 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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