Flesh and Neck Stocks. . .

Despite the recent flurry (pun unintended) of cross-country skiing adventures solo and with the Grand Duchess, I have managed to occasionally put brush to paint and embark on the final third of the eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. Here's where things stood as of about 9pm yesterday (Wednesday) evening when I rinsed my brush.

Look closely, and you'll note the basic dark red (Citadel Khorne Red) neck stocks (gray for officers), followed by clean-up with another application of Quaker Gray carefully trimmed in around the neck stocks to avoid spoiling earlier brushwork. All of which was carried out with my venerable Leow 000 sable round that I've used for more than 20 years. Probably closer to 25 at this point.

For now, we'll have to leave it there as I am departing about 8am tomorrow morning for the two+ hour drive north to our favorite Nordic Ski center, where there is a Saturday morning race I am supporting in one way or another. Not racing myself you understand. My own skiing is not quite of the caliber necessary for that just yet!

And, frankly, I'm much more interested in becoming a stronger, more proficient cross-country skier able to teach the rudiments of the sport myself than I am in racing. Still, a 5k event for more senior recreational (in other words older) citizen racers might be fun to try in another year or two. We'll see.

In any case, I will enjoy a late Friday morning recreational ski with one of the coaches up there who has taken me under his wing in recent years. So, it will kind of be a lesson without actually paying for a lesson since I'm sure he'll provide valuable insights and suggestions as we schuss through the woods, navigate steep climbs, and careen down the occasional hair raising descent.

It's pretty rugged on certain trails to say the least. Runs like the Rollercoaster, Crybaby, and Dead Man's Drop aren't for the faint of heart. Up to now, I've avoided the latter. Maybe this weekend? Cross-country skiing is anything but boring. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

On that note, I'll also work on my technique once the race ends midday Saturday and on Friday afternoon as well as Sunday until early afternoon when I must return (sadly) to real life for classes on Monday morning. Should climb back into the painting chair early next week. So, stay tuned for further updates.

But come mid-February, it's back to Forbush Corner Nordic Center for some more winter fun!

-- Stokes

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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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