In the Midst of Applying Metallics. . .

Not the greatest photograph, but look closely, and you'll spot silver stirrups and bits along with brass rings and buckles on the halters of the horses.

A few different painting sessions today to finish highlighting the black leather and next begin applying the metallics (silver and brass oils). To approximate spurs on the rear of the boot heels (not visible here), I satisfied that particular need with a nice small dot of silver using my old 000 sable round. Happily, not too many flubbs with the brush today.

Just the scabbard tips and sword hilts to do, and then I'm taking a break from these for a few days to allow the oil bits to dry. While the painting iron is hot, I'll jump to that second squadron waiting in the wings and apply yellow, tan, and maybe some orange undercoats to the 14 horses before adding the oil washes to get that multidimensional glaze effect that so nicely approximate horseflesh.

-- Stokes

Comments

Simon said…

These are looking great

11:35 PM

Scheck said…

They come out better and better... outstanding unit with its red coats.
I will wait for more! Peter

12:44 AM

marinergrim said…

Very nice indeed. Very nice.

1:16 AM

Independentwargamesgroup said…

Its a difficult skill you use Stokes. As I've said before they almost look like porcelain, well done.

2:45 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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