Painting Preparation. . .

A couple of nice shots of horse with 'bay' coloration, basically black manes, tales, and lower legs.

And two of so called 'chestnuts.'

Getting everything ready on the ol' painting desk to begin applying the basic horse flesh colors this evening. I've dug out my preferred tubes of Grumbacher and Winsor & Newton oils: Sepia, Burnt Sienna (erroneously referred to in a previous post as Burnt Umber), Van Dyke Brown, and Light English Red. Most of the 36 horses will get a reddish chestnut coloring on bodies, manes, and tails. Burnt Sienna and Light English Red are idea for that although I'll need to be careful with the Light English Red as it is very orange, so perhaps a bit of toning down with Van Dyke Brown will be in order before actually applying it to the model horses. But looking at photographs and illustrations of horses will immediately show that variations abound.

I also recall reading somewhere years ago, and it was about Napoleonic cavalry, that Chestnuts were the most common color for cavalry horses, hence my decision to paint most of my herd in this way.

Seven of the 36, though, are base- and undercoated in a subdued yellow. And these are earmarked to become 'bays,' which will be sprinkled through the three-squadron regiment once everything has been finished and glossed. For them, I will use the darker, less reddish Van Dyke Brown and Sepia varieties of brown.

I actually find myself eager to start this evening. As with most painting projects, the early steps are fairly easy no-brainer processes where one does not have to think too much as they happily apply to their subjects. The only tendency I have, and must remain aware of is to avoid loading my brush with too much paint, which will make the process of wiping off the oils messier than it need be and risks allowing less of the colored undercoat to show through the glaze, defeating the whole purpose. You can always go back and add more oil paint if you want, but it's difficult to remove if you go too heavy from the outset.

Wish me luck.

-- 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...

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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