Von Polenz Cuirassiers, ca. 1733: Hat and Saddlecloth Lace. . .

After two days, the hat and saddle cloth lace is done. Whew! I also highlighted the visible facings/turnbacks with Army Painter 'Fur Brown.' Probably lighter than the actual coffee brown described, but artistic license and all you understand.

Next up three more tiny details: the gold loops holding the white ribbons onto the hats, mustaches, and the cuirass waist belts. After that, gunmetal and brass on the carbines and slightly lightened 'Leather Brown' highlights on the shoulder belts and gauntlets. Somewhere in there any visible buttons [and sword baskets] as well.

The trumpeter and his mount will be two of the last things to tackle before final touch-ups and eventual glossing. I'm aiming to have 'em all done by month's end, just two weeks and a bit more away. Can he do it? Stay tuned to find out.

-- Stokes

Comments

Andy McMaster said…

Those are coming along splendidly. I'm just painting odds and ends at the moment as the fancy takes me. Not ready for the commitment and slow grind of another big unit.

Well done for cracking on with these.

1:47 AM

caveadsum1471 said…

Splendid progress on these lovely looking chaps, I am meandering along with an Austrian infantry unit at the moment!
Best Iain

9:45 AM

Stryker said…

These are really coming together Stokes - lovely work!

7:05 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thank you, men! Diving back in today (Saturday) after a few days of 'real life' getting in the way of more important things like toy soldiering.

Kind Weekend Regards,

Stokes

9:31 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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