Managed a bit of painting time tonight…
These are just about finished, to be honest I think I will repaint the bone coloured weapon strap, I wanted a contrast and managed to get one 😱.
I also managed to make a start on another five. I will count these as Fleet rescue too, hence the blue uniforms.
Work has been challenging, but in a good way, it is all go, but I feel good about things.
Hopefully I will get some more done tomorrow.
I managed some more work on my Troopers/mercenaries/security…
These are nearly finished, really just the sidearm and weapon strap on the middle one.
We also managed a game of unstable unicorns and then One Night a Werewolf
I started my secondment today, 6 weeks as acting deputy head in one of our high schools. Today was mainly sorting out supply cover for next week. It is a good experience for me .
Today has been hectic to say the least…
My good lady is under the weather and therefore I became taxi today. Firstly to pick up a giant animal run, this involved emptying the trailer of crap, swearing at the trailer as the jockey wheel was rusted down, so WD40 and a hammer later I was on my merry way. Back in, a quick turnaround and back out for my daughter’s riding lesson… back from there to turn around to take her to a birthday party. As she was having fun I was fighting my way around Tesco.
I managed to get my troopers sprayed a second time and made some progress on a couple of the larger worms and the ‘fleet rescue/ security’ troopers.
I was just thinking about going to bed when my youngest threw up all over the kitchen floor! 🤮
Due to an Air Traffic controller strike I am still in Edinburgh… went shopping, went out for tea with a couple of colleagues, then back to the hotel for an early night as I need to be up at 04.30 to get the flight back home.
So tonight we have some touristy pictures 😱
I also made a little friend..
This was just after he scampered up my leg!
And finally… what is with the hotel carpet in the corridors?
Round about 6 Miles south of Gunnister is my next interesting locale, well it is if you are me 😁.
Next up is Mavis Grind. This is the narrowest point in Shetland. One one side is the Atlantic and the other is the North Sea. Why is it interesting, well, apart from the actual geography, the history of the place is pretty cool too.
As mentioned above, the Shetland Islands (never, never call it ‘The Shetland’s’ up here) sits with the North Sea to the East and North Atlantic to the West.
As Vikings colonised this part of the world they took advantage of this narrow strip of land… rather than sailing all they way around they would drag their boats across from one side to the other. The name is from the Norse and means something along the lines of: ‘Gate of the narrow isthmus’ . This method pretty much carried on for centuries especially in the winter months when coming round either end of the islands was asking for trouble.
In times gone by the ground level was a lot lower, the main road built it up. Supposedly at the narrowest part it is something like 33m (110 feet) from high water to high water.
in the late 90’s the BBC or someone similar did a test…
They did indeed pull a boat from the sea to the ocean. Not sure why they needed to try as in the archives there are lots of pictures and testimonies of people doing just that. http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=ViewItem&key=SXsiTiI6MTE2LCJQIjp7InZhbHVlIjoiTWF2aXMgR3JpbmQiLCJvcGVyYXRvciI6IjEiLCJmdXp6eVByZWZpeExlbmd0aCI6IjMiLCJmdXp6eU1pblNpbWlsYXJpdHkiOjAuNjUsIm1heFN1Z2dlc3Rpb25zIjoiNSIsImFsd2F5c1N1Z2dlc3QiOm51bGx9fQ&pg=54&WINID=1558564105627#ZIk6J2xfZQ8AAAFq4ajpUA/130428
Okay it isn’t as big as the one above but they did indeed do it up until relatively recently.
No models, painting or nothing tonight as I am sitting in a hotel room in Edinburgh eating salt and vinegar Pringles and drinking tea… what a rock and roll lifestyle I lead!
Back to Shetland on Friday morning…
Another road trip with work to the north of the island led me past the scene of an extremely important find.
Picture the scene… 12th May 1951. Two men were cutting a new peat bank and came across some human remains at a depth of 75cm or roughly 3 feet down. Police were called and thankfully it wasn’t an ‘orrible murder but something historical and very interesting indeed.
What they had come across was a burial from the 17th Century. By the time they found him there was nothing left but his finger and toe nails, some hair and a few fragments of bone. His clothing and personal effects however were pretty much intact.
His purse still held three coins (1 Dutch and 2Swedish). One of the coins had the date 1690 and his clothing was of a style typical of the 17th century.
The reconstruction of his clothing looked like this…
His grave location was marked by the men who erected a large stone…
I think it was the one above as the sign wasn’t that specific…
It was common practice up here to simply bury someone who was found up on the hill, a shallow grave was dug away from any peat workings if the body was unrecognised. This was especially the case if the body had been there a while.There are no records of this man being buried or no folk memories either so this could possibly be the case. Hypothermia or some illness could have caused him to die between townships. Was it murder, although there is no evidence on the clothing and the fact that there were coins in his purse, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t. He may have had pack ponies with him with valuable goods in… we never can tell. One theory I have heard was that he might have been out collecting rents from the various crofting communities… who knows?
It is a bit sad to think that this man one day simply disappeared, potentially leaving family and friends to wonder why he never came back.
So there you go… the Gunnister man… an extremely important archaeological and historical find.
Next time we will look at some geographical history, or potentially historical geography…
The question is have you missed me?
So I haven’t blogged for three whole days and I reckoned I should get my finger out and write something again… the reason for me absence, well actually there hasn’t really been one apart from getting tired and going to bed to write something then falling asleep.
So what have I been up too?
First up..I finished the pilots…
I also made a start on the Mantic Deadzone GCPS booster pack. Never have I sworn so much. Luckily there were only 10 miniatures as I reckon 6 heads pinged across the room to superglue themselves to various bits of furniture, curtains and perhaps the dog as no matter how hard I looked they never reappeared!
The Star Saga minis were, if you remember, a single piece casting. The new lot comprises legs, torso, head and weapon/equipment arms. Some of the ones in the pack are metal.
I decided to go for one ranger and made him a sniper. The other guy kneeling is a comms operator. The final one with metal arms is an engineer. The rest are a mixture of carbines and assault rifles. I also built a flamer and a grenade launcher.
The biggest Pain in the Arse was this…
Absolutely no instructions and it came looking like this…
Bits were sticking out from every bit. Now to be fair after a bit of head scratching I worked out what went where, but it did take a bit longer than expected.
I am getting there just the weapon to add to him and then all of armour for the shoulder and the knees. As the arms are in two bits each and then it is causing a few headaches making sure that it is going to fit together.
I decided to go for the big gun, but could have gone for a flamer and chain saw. I felt the former was more Mobile infantry, but I may add a second one to the force at a later date.
My horse went out into the summer paddock yesterday, I started off the journey as a cavalryman and ended up as an infantryman as I had what is technically called a saddle malfunction. Luckily I was able to get off before it went completely awry!
Here he is having a little excited charge about…
He is the black in the foreground.
Right off to tame a triceratops in Ark (our new game for the console).
Further work on the pilots, shading done with the blue wash. I also managed to get some paint onto the belt accoutrements.
I am just about managing to do half an hour a night, if I had longer I would be a bit further on (talk about stating the bleeding obvious). I will try and get the belts finished tomorrow then move onto the troopers.
More work on the pilots this evening…
Only did about 30 minutes this evening as I had been off tromping round a field for a couple of hours putting up electric fencing. The horses are off to their summer paddock on Sunday so we were getting it ready to go.
These will get a bit more done tomorrow. I forgot to bring in the blue wash to add shadow to the grey areas around the head.
Well I have just spent a very long time painting two spacesuits white… if I ever need to paint a spacesuit again in the future it is going to be anything but white!
Still a very long way to go but some progress has been made. The faces have been repainted so often that I think the detail is going! Next time I will paint the. White then put a flesh wash over the top and see how it looks 🤔.
I decided that a blonde female would be a bit of a cliche so went for dark haired instead.
The neck collars are going to be the same colour as the knee and elbow patches and the belt apparatus…I haven’t a clue yet 😱.
Hopefully I will get a bit more time tomorrow evening, first up will be highlighting of the boots and gloves as it will be something that I am bound to forget.
Bogenwald 