The hidden dangers in Shetland are real, I still don’t know how I avoided the fate of at least one other person every year… yes we have a secret lurker, just waiting for the unwary… we are talking about the dreaded …
Starling
Yep, here he is, like a little bright ninja saboteur! He causes more fires in cars than any other thing I can think of…
Little blighter had shoved this lot under my bonnet…
Luckily I had left my lights on yesterday and couldn’t drive the car this morning. I only found it when I went to jump start it this afternoon.
So be warned people, starlings are everywhere waiting for their chance to strike.
So last night, I needed to go out and lock the hens up to keep them safe from ferrets or otters. So I toddled off outside and decided to take quick video at midnight.
The Ipad struggled a bit with the light levels, but it definitely gives you an impression of what it is like up here. Midnight and we had blackbirds doing their evening chorus.
Today was a bit of a productive day, I have pretty much finished all of my mates birthday present. The Buddha and Tori gate have been neglected, so I gave them a bit of vegetation. I am not sure whether I like the bits on the statue, but it may grow on me. The last bit to do is the wagon with the rice bales on it..
I also managed to make a start on a 6mm Lizardmen Army, I decided to give these a go as I wanted to have some practice before I went for 6mm Samurai. I was thinking of doing a 6mm Sengoku participation game in the October games day (that is if it goes ahead).
Yeah the colours are a bit GW, but I couldn’t think of what other colour to do them. I will do a bit more tomorrow evening on these.
When I found my 6mm Samurai I noticed that they were all on cardboard bases. This got me thinking as to things that have changed over the years.
I hated basing armies as you had to cut out your own bases out of either beer mats or mounting card. It took forever and I for one could never get the bases at ninety degrees all of the time. Jump forwards a few years and voila, you pay someone pennies to cut you some out of MDF. These can really be any size that you want.
Then there was the paint, highly smelly humbrol enamels. Or oil paints. I only ever tried oil paints once on a 54mm Airfix model. I don’t think it ever dried. The enamel wasn’t much better. Now we have a plethora of paints, from airbrush paints right the way through to the oils and the enamels. Of course there is my favourite go to paint in the Contrast Paints… I really must try painting with other ones again before I forget how.
Models themselves were sometimes blobs of metal or there was plastic in the terms of Airfix. My first armies were of course these. unpainted as I didn’t have the knowledge or inclinations paint them. My first ‘real’ war games army were the old Donnington 15mm Early Germans. my mate went Imperial Roman. Compared to 15mm miniatures today they are so dated… but funnily enough here I am using them and adding to them for my HOTT army.
With regards to that, here I am with Tin soldier 15mm Aztecs and conquistadors, original army sold years ago. I seem to be rebuilding all of my armies from my youth. All I need now are Museum miniatures crusaders, Two Dragon Samurai and Essex Miniatures early imperial Roman and I am there. Oh and a pile of ACW confederate troops from Essex I think.
I suppose one of the biggest changes now is the internet. I can now talk to manufactures or sellers in real time. If I want to compare miniature sizes someone out there will have done some pictures. There are so many different manufacturers out there too, so the Magpie approach to ‘my’ hobby is really bad for my wallet. It used to be the case I went to a convention and saw some great games and go and get enthused and come away with an army of Goblin Monkey riding ninja, which would end up in the bring and buy three years later …unopened! Now I can buy them whilst sat on the toilet! YouTube let’s me watch other people painting things or even playing the rules of my ‘new game’ all great stuff.
Blogging… yep it is great. I have met (virtually) some amazing people in all parts of the world. Without this here blog I never would have had the privilege of meeting them. I can honestly say that the people that are following my blog Are extremely supportive, and I hope I am for them. I have had only a couple of problems, and that is mainly people posting dodgy links as messages, they get deleted as soon as I see them.
And finally for me especially… the elephant in the room (although I haven’t printed it yet) is my 3D Printer. I remember many years ago my mate and I talking about how great it would be to get someone to make an us an army of our choosing. We talked about how much it would cost to get a sculptor to do it and then to get someone to cast them up. We did think about Prince August moulds at the time, but it never really got off the ground. Roll forward 30 years and I am printing my own miniatures and terrain in my shed. I pay for a file and print as many as I want for pennies. It gets even better than that. I can get things free and print them for pennies.
The down side of the printer is that it is sometimes too easy and cheap and I have printed so much crap that I will never use! My next consideration is to move into resin printing and give that a bash. Maybe Christmas next year.
The one thing that I do miss is going to conventions. Yeah I could go to some in time, and I did think about going to one of the Scottish ones next year just for the hell of it … If I manage it no doubt I will come back with some Goblin, Monkey riding ninja!
There are bucket loads of other things that have changed so much, but these are the ones that really just popped into my head. So what do you reckon are the big changes
Tonight I did a lot more slicing as well as redoing bits and bobs for the Japanese themed villages. I have put four paddy fields together and filled them with rice in 3D builder.
The other thing I did tonight was to get the rocks repainted. Thankfully they look more like a base rock colour now rather than RAF blue.
I also replaced the fluid in the sonic cleaner… before and after photos follow…
CleanAnd Dirty,.. I honestly didn’t pour coffee in here, or have an accident in it either!
The other news on the printing front is that the roads STL’s have been downloaded. I will do some test prints tomorrow.
There is still the lower jaw to do but the main bit is finished. It only took 60 hours over four sessions to print. I had to cut it into four and drop the size down to 90% to make it fit on the print bed.
I did have a. It of a problem with one of the rear pieces as it fell off before the end of the print (which I had forgotten about) and as such it doesn’t meet in part of it.
The gap is clearly visible on this photo. I will fix it with some Greenstuff. Hopefully the lower jaw isn’t too hard to print!
Well I now have to add… sort of.. unfortunately some pillock who shall remain nameless suddenly remembered after taking the photos that the sashimono on the Infantry were without their mon. Part of me thinks sod it, part of me thinks get them painted and a further part makes me think …buy some water slide transfers. Sadly the easy options are sort of out. First if I don’t paint them they may look a bit weird and secondly there is a lot of wisps of filament on the flat bits so any water slide transfers will be a right sod to get painted… but anyway here we go. Mon, bases and Banners withstanding. The army is done…
I am onto my next Samurai miniatures already. My mates Birthday present arrived. I want everything paint3d by next weekend so got straight on with them today.
That is everything done for this army. It has taken me a bit longer than I thought it would I started on April 4th and eventually got them finished May 22nd…slow by my standards 😂
Last unit done
Okay so I just noticed I forgot to paint the bearded faces! I will get them sorted tomorrow.
Bogenwald 