Today we decided it was time to do something about the local landmark of our rather knackered caravan.

Well we were going to cut it up last year then the starlings got in and made their nests in it, so we couldn’t, then Lockdown came, then we didn’t have a car to pull the trailer…all in all the winter totally buggered it… well okay buggered it more is a better way to describe it…the last big wind caused this side to completely collapse.

We decided that before the birds nested in it again then we would start to take it down. This proved to be a bigger job time wise than we thought, but with a bit of brute force and ignorance we now have it down to waist height…

I now ache like buggery…part of the reason for this was using the reciprocating saw upside down and back to front as I tried to cut it into manageable bits. Needless to say I haven’t got any painting done this evening. I did manage to get the reprinted cottage of the build plate…

This is a much better size than yesterday’s attempt. I am now printing the larger cottage, with a small animal barn and some barrels… oh and a hen on her nest too.

Tonight I got my brush out and sat down to paint something only to realise that is was 22.00. So I didn’t get that much done. Argentbadger had suggested I leave the flesh tones white, so I had a go at the Contrast white over the base colour of white and it was giving a bit of a shading, but it just didn’t look right. So I added a smidge of flesh tone into the white and added a fair bit of water… this was the effect…

It’s not white, but it is a really light skin tone. So a bit thanks to Argent as I really wasn’t sure what colour to do the faces etc.

I set the FDM printer away this evening and got the cottage printing again, this time at 65% original size. Part of me now thinks it might be a bit small, but I will see in fifteen hours time.

It has been a long two weeks since all the kids came back into school. I am now on Easter break and tomorrow morning I do not want to get up until I wake up… if that is 15.00 then so be it!

It has been a hard couple of days at work and I am knackered. I am two, no three staff down as of today and the fly with a blue bottom is the best way to describe me as of late.

Anyway my daughter got her photos into a exhibition led by creative Scotland, so we watched that over Zoom and then I messed around downloading all of the 3D printer files I haven’t got around to saving yet… this sadly took a long time as there were rather a lot of files to organise.

If truth be told I have too much and will probably never ever print half if it, let alone print it.

Today we were sorting out a new run for the ferrets, it took a little longer than expected but we got there in the end (we hope).

So we have a couple of ferrets that are about six months old now (probably older). Now they come out a fair old bit to play with us, but we felt that it would be good if we could give them a bit more space than in their hutch so we set about building them a play area.

So here are Tonks and Luna, enjoying their new place. Luckily we decided to see what they got up to.

Firstly one of them decided that climbing was their method of escape, so climbed up the concrete wall at the back…

The front of the Knox was 60cm… it is now 80 as she then climbed up the door and then proceeded to shimmy her way out.

The other one is evidently a good jumper… she just about got out of the end using the log in the first photo as a launch pad. We used and angle grinder with a cutting disk in to put a piece of Crain pipe over the edge of the wood to stop her managing to get her claws on the top and haul herself out…

Fully the last time we looked they were still in, unfortunately they decided to both cram themselves in the blue house thing and gave us heart failure as they weren’t anywhere to be seen in the house or the box.

I managed to get the first layer of brown onto the armour… hopefully it is going to work out as well as the other one. Tonight has been video research on using EVA foam.

Tonight was bit of a pain in terms of running about and picking up kids etc. This week at work is what can be best described as interesting. So all in all I was surprised that I managed to get my backside into gear and get anything done.

I decided to get some paint onto the cultists. My plan was to try a tan colour for the armour and I was pleased that the Aggro’s Dunes turned out to be exactly what was in my head. I found a spare Ork when I was in the shed yesterday and as he was already undercoated then I decided to Chuck some paint on him too…

I also got some bits and pieces done on the arm guard…

Tonight we worked on some of the metalwork on the armour as well as getting another coat of the green on. It will need some tidying up but progress is being made 👍.

You can just about see the paint I used…it is getting on a bit really, so useful for this task.

I was in the shed with my daughter looking for the above paint and decided to see where I was with my Hundred Years’ War French Infantry… I was a bit further forward than I thought, but whilst I was having a mooch I came across the Perry flags that they put into the box with their painting scheme and voila I now have a banner for my knight… I thought it looked pretty good and as there is red and blue on the bit that covers the flag pole it fitted in with the colours on the banner top…

Now t still needs a bit of trimming, but it has saved me an awful lot of work doing something by myself… so a win as far as I am concerned… for the more discerning of you, you will of course realise it is the banner of Saint Jude… if you are anything like me you will know it is because it said so on the page I got it from… interestingly St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes! Purely a coincidence I chose this one instead of St Thomas…I hope!

Yes it is now official…I hate yellow, this came about after repainting this back end of the horse about 4 times this evening and it is still no further forward. To be honest it is a big old bit of horse backside to contend with so the yellow Contrast was going to struggle.

I think it looks better than yesterday’s attempt…

I am going to leave it for a bit and see what I think. It definitely looks more yellow than the calf with scour colour that appeared yesterday. I really gave it a bloody good shake this evening. Option two is a coat of flash gits yellow (ordinary paint..or layer as GW call it) with the yellow Contrast over the top.

When I said I had ‘x’ amount to paint on the table, I forgot about this lot. Funnily enough, the scouts were going to be yellow… not any more! In fact I probably could have painted them in the time it has taken me to do a square inch of yellow cloth…

I am too tired to carry on tonight so I will bash on tomorrow.

Yeah, another evening of not very much, I really couldn’t be bothered at all. I managed to get a bit of work done on these two…

Okay, guess who forgot to photograph the second miniature! I really need to tidy up the mouth on her ladyship. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.

Was still feeling a bit ropey today so went looking for the box of 10mm stuff. I found it and sorted out some Mongols and also resprayed some Magister Dinosaur.

I found an important lesson whilst about to take a photo, don’t sit on the layer you have just removed or you will get the effect above! Luckily they just moved sections.

So in here we have mongol infantry an civilians, pretty much the same with the plains war Indians with the addition of mounted braves. bottom left corner is some Anglo Egyptian stuff. Enough to keep me busy for a while.

The above are my remaining Mongol cavalry and my MM dinosaurs.

Now I have a confession to make, I promised I wouldn’t get any new miniatures for a good old while and technically I haven’t apart from the special ones from Alternative Armies that I had been after for years. My problem is that they have been three kickstarters for 3D printed miniatures and terrain that I have backed.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitaltaxidermy/trewell-common-fantasy-historical-english-village-stl-pack … This one got me as the guys were showing the buildings that they were making for the printer… I had actually gone on to do the following one…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iain-lovecraft/the-frost Ian’s stuff is gorgeous if you remember my pyramid I printed them that was from his Meso American range.

And finally, a bit of the mines of Moria, that isn’t… https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printinggoeseveron/mines-of-maznar-3d-printable-dandd-adventure . This one is from the guy I have a Patreon of. He is doing the lord of the rings miniature you will have seen on the blog

So that’s it purchase wise for the 3D printer for a while too. Let’s see if I can keep it up!