Step 2 White and Pink Markings. . .

A nice close-up of two of the Bay horses.

A few short painting sessions later, and the various and sundry white markings on the ankles, legs, and muzzles have been completed.

First, all of the black areas on the 36 horses were first painted a mid-gray. I then applied a wash or two of Citadel 'Abbadon Black' thinned with Liquitex Flow Aid, which provided some very attractive variegation on the castings and subtle highlighting as it settled nicely into lower areas. I was trying to create that dark gray, velvety look that so many horses exhibit around their noses, mouths, and chins. I used an old #3 and #4 round brush for these steps.

Next, I used an off white craft paint called 'Buttermilk' rather than Hollywood Smile White. which seems to give a nicer, more realistic looking result. The muzzles went quckly, by the ankles and lower legs took a bit more time and care. Still, not too many errant blotches to remove before they set. My trusty 20+ year old sable 000 came in handy here. It's showing its age at this point, but it still gave me some ability to apply and work this color precisely to where I wanted it on siad ankles and legs.

Last, it was time for a bit of pink -- Winsor & Newton alkyd oil 'Flesh' -- on some of the muzzles, maybe about 2/3 of them. I consulted a number of illustrations in my books on horses as well as online for this step when it came to pink skin showing through around nostrils and on lips. Usually but not always, these are adjacent to white hair. No two horses look exactly alike, so I tried to keep things very random too since there is such a wide variation when it comes to horse coloring and markings. Once more, 'Ol' Paint,' my venerable 000 sable was used for this step since I was using such small amounts of paint and had to work it carefully around nostrils and lips. On previous horses, I've always overdone the fleshtone, so I was very careful this go 'round to keep things restrained.

Now, just some lighter hoof coloring to add to those feet which have white markings on the ankles or lower legs, and then it will be time to complete the leather girths before moving on to the more time-consuing bridles, reins, and etc.

-- Stokes

And here's the entire herd awaiting some attention to its hooves.

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

Search This Blog