Crossing the Finish Line. . .

After a busy morning filled with lots of little things on the dreaded end of semester/term 'To Do' list, I took a long lunch to dry-brush the bases with some cheap tan craft paint and then apply some foliage clumps with careful dots of superglue. To my mind, at least, the finished company of Slavonische Brooder Grenzer look like they are emerging from the edge of a wood to harass an exposed Prussian flank a hundred yards or so away.

A few days' break, and then it's time to apply the usual white acrylic gesso to those last 14 or 15 Eureka Saxon cuirassiers. I've been doing some research, and will paint them more or less in line with 1730s-era uniforms, which were a bit more colorful than later in the middle part of the century. I think. To be sure, I must check my sources one more time before applying brush to figures.

-- Stokes

An Early Tuesday Morning P.S.

Thank you everyone for your interest in the genzers and related question(s). These troops will make good opponents for the Anspach-Bayreuth jagers and von Hordt free infantry painted back in 2023 (?). They match nicely in style. But I'll "need" to rebase the first two companies of grenzers painted back in the 2010s to match these since they will form a large, composite unit of light troops for the Electorate of Zichenau.

On that note, I don't plan to replace my old school green base method for the line troops. The more realistic terrained style is reserved for staff bases, skirmishers like these, and a few other specialist units, for example all of those transport wagons, pontoon, and limber teams painted earlier in the century.

It might be time for a review and, perhaps, a tabletop battle or two to celebrate the coming summer holidays with that in mind. What say you? Sort of a project retrospective 'The Grand Duchy of Stollen at (Almost) 20.' Longtime visitors might recall that the project has its origins stretching back to early December 2005, with the first actual unit started during the late summer of '06. The '1st Musketeers,' consisting of Revell 1/72 Prussians in the marching pose. I think it took something like a dozen boxes to gather enough figures for that 60-figure unit.

But I digress!

This particular batch of figures has been fun to tackle, and I am relieved to check them off the ol' mental list of things to do. I've only carted them around in their unpainted state for about 15 years now, so it was time to get 'em painted finally.

Speaking of which, the Saxon cuirassiers await. Tally ho!

-- 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...

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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