Updated Campaign Area Map. . .

The Stollenian Ministry of Cartography has managed fairly well at long last.

Following quite a few failed attempts by Claude to make the fixes I requested -- It has been a very frustrating couple of days to say the least. -- I finally used my preferred online photograph editing application to make those edits manually and sharpen up the image overall. So, I've finally got the map looking very close to what I've been after since the very first hand-sketched and colored map way back in September 2006. And here we are. Complete with a faint hex overlay and a scale of miles in the upper right corner.

Each hex is roughly equal to a day's march, assuming poor, ill-defined roads across the region and that armies of the era typically marched at the rate of their transport and pontoon train(s), which is to say a walk with occasional forced marches notwithstanding. Anyway, I'm relatively pleased with the outcome. There is one last very minor point that I might try to fix later (ok, two), but for now, we'll leave it and move onto other more pressing things.

Speaking of which.

It's time for another driving lesson with the Young Master behind the wheel (it's Saturday afternoon as I write this post) and then a couple of late afternoon errands before potting a bunch of new annuals outside along the front walk early this evening following supper. After dark, it's finally time to cement my Anhalt-Zerbst figures to their permanent bases. Watch for a couple of photographs of the finished regiment tomorrow!

-- Stokes

Comments

Richard said…

The map is looking very good. I gave up using AI for creating accurate images for my history lessons. It always managed to get the place names and borders wrong regardless of having been given the details.

1:39 AM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

I'm just about there, Richard. Even with very clear, repeated instructions, three different AI's simply could not get my map of an IMAGINARY place right without screwing up other details. It was maddening. I can well imagine your own frustration with actual places, names, and events. For some things AI can be very useful, but but for many (most?) others we (and our students) still must do the work ourselves.

Kind Sunday Regards,

Stokes

10:32 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 ...

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!

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...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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