We had never heard about this 19th century smugglers cave even though living up here for 12 years. We found out about it today and set off on an expedition to find it.

We eventually did…

In the 19th century the fishermen didn’t own their own boats. The paid for them in the fish they caught. A friend of my wife has done some research and for every one boat registered another four were smuggling. The crews would go out in their sixareens to the fishing. This was a deadly job and a fair few tragedies happened around these shores. In July 1881 58 men were lost from Gloup when 10 boats foundered in an unexpected storm. Basically every able bodied man from the village was lost.

These clinker built boats would head out up to 40 miles off shore and then return. Some would stop off in Foula, an island off Shetland, sell or trade some of their fish for brandy and then head into their secret locations. They would Drop off the brandy and then head home. They would either return for it later or some of their accomplices would do it for them.

This cave was one such secret location. One end opens directly to the sea and is not visible from the nearby village of Hamnavoe. The other entrance is about 100 metres away and is well hidden amongst a jumble of rocks.

On the way back the kids just had to jump off every available rock…

We had an awesome afternoon out exploring somewhere around 7 miles from where we live.

I havent so much as looked at my blog for a week due to having some horrible flu bug. I am sleeping on average 18 hours a day, haven’t eaten properly since Monday and am, to be honest, feeling a little glum 🙁

I have new toys in my airbrush and airbrush paints, new figures and all manner of fun things to do. Problem is I haven’t got the energy to do anything.

I had a bash at printing stone work. Not sure why, well apart from diverting my mind. I found my normal higher detail blue foam wall with lots of texture didn’t work (not in this picture)basically I make a wall out of it. I blasted off another rest tile out of scrap and it was much better. Initially I have used some 10mm blue foam. I have got some foam board so I might give that a go tomorrow on some black/grey card.

My blue foam walls normally look like this.

I do like my little stuff lots

I am a big fan of small scales and due to the size of my house small scale games are a lot easier as they take up less room.

I present a selection of pulp figures and a fantasy selection. These are all 10mm Pendraken figures.

I also can manage a bug hunt using marines and a strangely familiar xenomorph.

Managed to get some paint onto this thing.

Base coated black from a spray can (top done with a brush)

Layers of dry brushing from the black…

Chocolate brown (basically a tester can of house paint)

Additional layers of a tan mixed into the brown with more tan added as the layers went on.

Ivory mixed into the tan/brown mix.

I painted up the top separately

The white tube cap pretty much disappears inside the tube. I might add some Black around the rim to make sure it is completely hidden. (The two dry brush colours can be seen in the picture above).

The nearly finished tower…

Still the gratings to dry brush gun metal as well as flock around the base as well as get a green wash around the lower parts of the tower to simulate damp. I might even go so far as adding a climbing plant up the side.

I now know how ancient sculptors made their sculptures. They squooshed up loads of marble plaster and Voila…instant sculpture.

I was cleaning out the r3mains of my filler and I noticed an arm. How wierd is that!

Well I managed a little more on the tower.

I was unsure what I wanted to do to add texture to the tower. I came up with lots of ideas, some a lot more time intensive than others did.

This ranged from cutting individual card stones to wrapping the whole thing in tin foil.  I remembered my old GW building Wargames Terrain book.

I had a mooch in there as I remembered they had a round tower. They had added filler to theirs. I therefore decided to do something similar. I mixed filler, PVA and sand together and brushed this on with a 2 cm brush. Once on I stippled it to get some form of rough texture.

It will get a light sand to knock off any of the peaks that may snap and I may actually sand off some of the texture on the individual stones to make them stand out a bit.

I am using the plastic end cap to attach the top to the walls. This was superglued and hot glued into place. This allows it to be removed if needs be.

Next stage…Painting the thing.