Tonight I got nothing done on the Green Knight as I played on Ark with my daughter again. It was good fun and we hardly screamed at each other at all, well except when the Rex tried to eat us and our birds… but that’s a different story.

Earlier this afternoon I did some investigating with the undercoat and Contrast paint. I tested the hand shaken paints first off at the tail end… it was dire, so I wiped it off the best I could. Both were shoved in the paint shaker for a good old while and I gave them a go again at the front end this time…. errr Yuk.

So not to be outdone I sprayed it white and retried…

So it would seem that it is the white grey I was using… funnily enough it is airbrush paint, but I wouldn’t have thought it would act like it was stopping the paint adhering if it was brushed on.

I also sprayed this lot at the door, I wasn’t going out into the shed in a blizzard!

They are all Flintloque ones from Alternative Armies. According to an email today the new ones are on the way.

It really snowed today, and then tried thawing and has now decided to freeze solid. Luckily I don’t have any kids in school. Technically I have to drop my son off as he got a place due to him missing loads due to ill health, but I won’t be going if it is a death trap.

Oh I decided to read something to chill out today. After spending about forty minutes stressing over What to read I went for Mordheim. I loved this game and we have used versions of it in club games. It got me thinking that actually I could probably make a few changes and use it for Flintloque. I still have a couple of gangs, well technically four. The original plastic Skaven and Humans, my undead one and a chaos one.

This made me laugh a lot more than it should have done…

So after yesterday saying that I could probably get the Green Knight finished today if I cracked on… well I didn’t finish or crack on for that matter. My daughter asked if I would play Ark with her and we spent a long time doing it. We then played one night as Vampire as a family so in the end I decided I couldn’t be bothered to do anything.

I did however force myself to get the paint out and do something… voila.. a white horse, some white on a Sister of Battle and an arm glued on a Brettonian mounted squire…

The photos look like I haven’t achieved much this evening, I have in fact repainted all of the green on the horse barding as well as the Knight…

I decided to try and do some highlights by drybrushing white over the green and then doing a single layer of contrast…it looked total shite.

So I repainted it all in white again only to find that the White wasn’t taking the Contrast, so as you can see it and still shiny. After much swearing I then overturned a pot of opened Contrast. Luckily I had a big brush handy and saved about 90% of it.

I honestly don’t know what is going on with the Contrast, but I believe that the problem is the white I am using as it went fine over the spray paint and has only really been an issue over the brushed on stuff. Perhaps it is time for a new white.

But the highlight of the early evening had to be trying to clear the header of the septic tank. Luckily I have no sense of smell. It took about an hour before we got it sorted. In the process I managed to badly twist my ankle… luckily I am back to work tomorrow so that should take my mind off things.

Shetland has now hit 84 cases, ten more today. All fallout from the original party.

So when I found my big box of plastic I also found some old tatty drawings that must be at least 25 years old…

This was from when I was in the Ermine street Guard I think, or possibly when I was doing the education pack for Corstopitum Roman fort.

That is me in said group and at said fort… this was my first day at a re-enactment event and the following was my last…

Well okay not anywhere near true, I managed loads today, just not Painting miniatures. I would have done some but I was out on the conservatory roof again (and will be on there again tomorrow). My fingers are aching so I decided to give them a rest. As some of you may remember, I had a drip in the roof and it went away, then decided to come back. So today in a fit of either pique or even keenness I got up there and ripped the roofing felt off above the leak to see what the heck was going on.

Once I managed to find the drip from the top I then traced it back up the roof. Sadly this meant I had to take more felt off. So in the end I had removed a third of it (luckily I had enough spare to cover what I took off.

Anyway regarding the Knight, after saying he wouldn’t be green, I am now swinging back the other way and am probably going to do him in shades of it. I kept coming up with ideas and to be honest the ideas looked a bit naff.

The feathers will be a darker green and the trappings brighter with a white bridle and silver of gold fleur de lys on it. This will speed up painting to be sure 😂.

And finally, once again I was in the wrong place at the wrong time!

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotland-now/scot-catches-incredible-moment-killer-23253551

Story of my life!

Since writing I hadn’t done anything I thought I had better get my arse into gear and do something, not a lot, but some progress was made…

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Interestingly enough the shield and painted knight were the colours he was in originally …. errr yuk! I seem to be missing my Brettonian shields so I have had to make do with one from my ancient bits box. I actually think it suits the foot sergeant.

The other thing I found was this….

And finally, this made me laugh (or wince perhaps)…

So as a bit of a what have I been up to last year I will start by showing the first and last painted figures from last year.

So having gone back through the posts and media then in 2020 I managed to paint (and complete) the following

6mm Armies: undead, Samurai, Sons of Set, Burmese, Lizardmen, Halflings. I also worked on reducing the 3D builds from 3DAlienWorlds to fit 6mm. It was tricky but I got there in the end.

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15mm: Sengoku Monster Hunter Set for my mate including a 3D printed village…

I also started and finished my 15mm Samurai army to be used in either HOTT or DBM…

I also managed to paint some 28mm stuff, not too much to be honest. The printed Lord of the Rings stuff from ‘The Printing Goes Ever On’ took up most of the time along with the Ill gotten games minis and the Neolithic stuff I printed…

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Now these are the things I finished and not the things I started and for whatever reason gave up on. Most of March and April was done with the Lizardmen which I very quickly fell out of love for.

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I probably spent more time printing than painting this year, an exaggeration but it does feel like I printed more things than painted. still to work on are the roads I printed, my 15mm village and my Hexon tile and my meeple dungeons

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The other thing I managed was a diorama, inspired as I was by Dave, Pat and Eric. I just needed a personal spark and it came funnily enough with the Neolithic gear I printed… I spent a good while looking at the various miniatures I had done and things swam into focus… not a human in sight…

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Now this thing took a lot of my energy but I have kind of got the bug a bit and already have a couple more planned (at least)…

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The first will be a wolf and pups outside a cave, the second is called He’s behind you! Now these are just simple mock ups. I want the wolf to be in a cave among the roots of a tree and the other to be in heavy vegetation.

So where do I see 2021 going… I am really going to try and curtail my purchasing of miniatures, this is two fold, one financial, I am trying not to spend on stuff that will never get done… the Lizardmen army being a case in point, bought, started and then lost all love and belief in the project.

Now I will likely waver, but with the amount of stuff I have to print and the amount of minis I still have to paint then it should keep me in miniatures for a really long while.

Off the top of my head….

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On top of this lot, there are more 6mm Samurai coming from a Kickstarter as well as some dogmen for Flintloque I said I would buy from a mate. As I said this lot was off the top of my head. I was mooching for some bits and pieces and found three Gw boxes of miniatures under the bed. Chaos marauder infantry, Lizardmen temple guard and some empire gunners and swordsmen.

First up to paint will be my ‘Green Knight’ and entourage, they probably won’t be green…. just saying

And finally, in case nobody says it to you today or any other day….

Absolutely nothing to do with stars. These things are sucking the joy out of my life. I can honestly say that if anything was to put me off 40k it is these.

I don’t know why but I can honestly say that the instructions are on one hand really specific and in others it took me ages working out how the arm goes onto the hand, this then has to go on the shoulder correctly to allow the second hand to meet the weapon where it should.

At least there are only three left to go… phew. Then I only have to paint them! In my mind these were going to be built in an evening and then sprayed the next with painting started on the third. Sadly it was not to be.

Regarding Covid, we have just got another 7 cases today taking this to 43 cases with 300 people being told to self isolate and be tested. The thing that really boils my piss is that people have been deliberately giving false names and addresses when they have been out and about.

My worry is we now have New Years Eve to deal with and these 43 cases are before we hit the Christmas Day legal and illegal visiting.

So this evening, I went back to doing a bit more on the Sisters of Battle. Managed to finish one, almost finish the second and make a start on the third.

I saw this brilliant bit from a nature camera… spot the mountain Lion stalking an elk.

I would like to point out that we don’t have these on Shetland, otters, Orca and other whales and dolphins… yes. Mountain Lions and Elk…no.

After watching a cut scene montage of the new Necromunda console game, I kind of got inspired to see about spending my Crimbo money… not at those prices I won’t. So I think I will see what else is out there.

Okay this is me having a bit of a major melt down here. As some of you know I live on Shetland an island between Norway and Scotland and as such living on an island we were allowed to be tier three of the Covid Lockdown rules. All mainland areas were tier four. We had had no cases at all in the last month and then guess what?

Yep some absolute nob head decided to have a party and we have now gone from Zero cases to sixteen and then today another ten with a further one hundred and twenty people needing to be contact traced and told to self isolate.

What the effing hell is wrong with people, it honestly beggars belief. The main place was Brae, but unfortunately this has now spread out west and into Lerwick. All visits to all care homes are now banned, various restaurants have had staff off now because the people on the trace list have been there… and finally the one that really takes the cake. A visitor from the mainland rocks up to Shetland and tests positive, so instead of being a good boy he decides to get pissed and to make matters worse he then takes his car for a spin and put it in the ditch and ends up in Accident and Emergency. He has since been arrested…

The dog has lost its pocket money for the year as her £2 stolen bar of chocolate cost us £212.67. Luckily it is nearly payday!

So to calm myself down, please find some relaxing sea photos from yesterday’s abortive beach visit.. please note the small boy in one of them!

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The wave that got him came up to the rocks to the right of the picture!