A Disaster Narrowly Averted. . .

Not white paint, but you get the idea.

Yesterday (Monday. . . Labor Day here in the U.S.) afternoon, I finally managed to clear the figurative decks enough to sit down to the painting table for some more work on those 36 Minden Austrian dragoons that have occupied so much of my sparse free time the last few months. Almost immediately, the small, plastic bottle of Citadel 'Skull White' slipped from my fingers as I opened the cap after shaking vigorously, and a healthy dollop of paint seemed to leap from it, spilling across my table in the direction of the lined up dragoons.

Mercifully, the painting gods smiled on me. I made my saving throw, and the paint stopped a mere centimeter or two -- it was terribly close -- from getting all over two or three of the mostly painted figures sitting there awaiting fine detail work. After filling the air with quietly hissed blue language and mopping up the blasted paint, careful examination indicated that, indeed, no figures were in sudden need of extensive retouching. But it was a damned near run thing to say the least.

I went on to finish some of the remaining white webbing at the top of the sword scabbards and very fine silver lining atop the muskets (or carbines?) slung from the right shoulders of the enlisted members of the regiment. In addition, I painted the white lace of one saddle cloth to see how it might look. I think I'll probably leave it at that since adding a couple of fine red lines, like those that apparently adorned the saddle cloth lace of the Batthyanyi Dragoons of yore, is probably beyond my ability and patience level at this point. But we're getting ever closer to finishing 'em up.

Its pouring rain here today in The Grand Duchy, so in lieu of my usual evening walk once The Young Master has been tucked in for the evening, I'll return to the painting table to add additional minute detailing. While not really necessary and almost invisible unless you hold the figures to within a few inches of your eyes, attention to the myriad of tiny details on castings as lovely as those produced and sold by Minden, Fife&Drum, and Crann Tara really brings them to life in a most pleasing way.

-- 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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