Skip to main content

Is It September Already??!!

Newly rebased Revell Prussian musketeers awaiting the addition of its two new Minden standard bearers.  The former MiniFig keeps watch for the time being from the rear.  This was the first unit I painted way back in July-September 2006.

Sadly, not much to report here at Stollen Central since my small game almost a month ago.  Although we just finished a three-month long summer vacation, real life kept getting in the way, rather more often than we would have preferred.  As I have written here often in recent years, bed and a book, or a movie/British TV program via Netflix or Acorn with the Grand Duchess, won out most evenings this summer.  I haven't really felt like doing much hobby-wise, truth be told, since my Baltic German town center in May and June and starting that squadron of horse grenadiers in bearskins in early July.  Sigh.  2017 was to have been the year that I beefed up my cavalry arm, but that looks increasingly unlikely the way things have been going.

However, spurred on by a comment left recently by Chris Gregg (and he has a point) plus the recent basing activities of Der Alte Fritz (I know, I know.  Monkey see, monkey do.), I have at last decided to get off my lazy you-know-what and begin the process of finishing the bases for several long-painted infantry units in my collection.  The first unit finished this (Saturday) evening is shown above.  Not bad if I do say so myself.  The usual laser cut 3mm ply Litko bases, measuring 60mm x 40mm (In the Grand Manner dimensions) with a small command group in the middle of the line, drummers, and sergeants to the rear in a third line.  The wooden bases add a tiny bit of heft to these plastic figures and also make it easier to pick them up without touching the figures themselves.  They and their paint have held up remarkably well these last 11 years given that they are plastic.  The two clear coats of Future/Klear acrylic floor polish has worked nicely to protect everything and prevent any flaking away of paint as far as I can tell.

Even better, the base preparation muse seized me for a little while post-bedtime for the Young Master, and I painted up enough multiple and single bases for two more 60-figure infantry units.  I plan to transfer one at least to these tomorrow, and possibly a second if time permits.  If I can manage just one unit of infantry or cavalry a weekend for the next couple of months, I figure I can get all of my as yet unbased (or badly based) existing units transferred to painted 3mm ply bases and then move on to all of the waiting cavalry added to the leadpile during the run up to my half-century mark last fall.  Maybe 2018 will be THE year?  Stay tuned.

-- Stokes

Comments

Steve J. said…
I share your 'pain' on the lack of progress on the painting and gaming front. This summer has been remarkably similar 'chez moi'. However with September here and little to do on the garden, other than tidying up etc, my thoughts always turn more towards wargaming. This is helped by the Colours show mid-September, which I always feel is the start of the gaming season for me.
Paul Liddle said…
A lovely looking unit Stokes, the Revell figures are very elegant. Whoever sculpted them did a heck of a good job!.
Stryker said…
They look so smart! It's nice to return and tidy things up, I've been doing a bit of that myself recently. I look forward to seeing your other rebased units.
Thank you for you kind remarks, gentlemen! And to think I once had thoughts of filtering out my plastics. Couldn't do it now i I wanted to. They really aren't that bad on second thought. O course, rebasing helps ten-fold with the overall presentation and new convenience of tabletop movement.

Best Regards,

Stokes

Popular posts from this blog

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