So we had bits and pieces to do today and I never had the urge to paint anything, I actually got as far as rescuing some miniatures out of the shed and even got the paints out, but err that was about as far as it got…
I did however stick some 6mm Samurai onto sticks!
This is about a quarter of what I need to do… so my plan is to get them done (as in Finished) in the Christmas holidays. Wish me luck!
So tonight was an unintentional night off. The kids were wanting to make bread, so I gave them the table and went and had a long soak in the bath đ
After the rain and snow we now have 70mph winds as standard, gusting higher…The problem with up here is sometimes you cannot tell how windy it is as there are no trees or bushes to show you.
So we spent a lot of today working on moving the electrics so that they are in the new conservatory, there was a bit of swearing but not a huge amount, which was a pleasant change.
On the upside we did find some rather funky 70âs wallpaper…
Today I managed to get some more of the wolves done. They, like the rhino, need some Matt varnish. I havenât quite decided on how everything will look in the end. So this is a starter for ten.
So this is where we have got to in the build. Part of me thinks that the wolves are a bit dark for this, but it is how they are in reality. I may have a play around with them and see how I get on.
Next question is blood on the calf or not….? I think not, but maybe I should.
So after yesterdayâs torrential rain and gales, today we had blizzards. Driving snow and more wind. Thankfully it didnât stay around long. Shetland is known for having four seasons in a day, so two in two days isnât too bad really.
It is my sonâs 10th birthday today, so fish and chips and cake for tea followed by a film of his choice… Home Alone… so whilst watching this I managed to get some work done on the rhino and the wolves…
As you can tell from the photos they are still a bit wet with the darker colours. I dry brushed the sand with a white coat and then added the Contrast paints over the top.
Tomorrow I hope to get these finished and then get them onto the base.
Today we have had apocalyptic rain, with a nice breeze and as such it hasnât been the best of days. So this evening my good lady sorted out the stables as everywhere is flooded and the stream in the field has totally burst itâs banks. With having the cold in the field we thought it better that they came in.
So in said wind and rain we got them in, weâll sort of got them in. The two older ones went in and the colt panicked and legged it into the darkness. Thankfully we got him in the end but by then I was having a sense of humour failure, torches failed we fell over, fell in puddles etc. But thankfully they are all in the yard now.
I really, really couldnât be bothered tonight so I decided to give things a miss.
So this is the kind of flooding I am talking about…
This is the main road North/South road at Tingwall…
Tonight I bit the bullet and poked holes into the base work and then shoved the trees in. Thanks for all the positive comments as they really did help. What didnât help was when I used my cutters to chop the stick size down. A whole pile of flock came from somewhere, I had visions of a totally bare tree on one side. Methinks it came from inside.
I also dry brushed the bright green tufts as well as most of the other ones as well to blend it all in. I also managed to do a bit of work on the rhino, basically getting a dark wash on them before dry bushing tomorrow.
I also tested the miniatures to see what they would look like in situ and I think they will work…
So on the whole I am happy with this. If I were to do it again then I would build the base up by two layers to allow trees to be placed anywhere.
Hopefully I will get this finished by the end of the weekend. I am considering another one with hunters and a mammoth, but I will see how I feel after finishing this one and after checking on how much space I have to store it.
So tonight I managed to get the trees reflocked, blasted with hairspray and then given a couple of coats of Matt varnish to try and seal the whole lot down.
Not exactly the worldâs best photo, but I think you can see what I was aiming for.
I also made a start on the animals, I couldnât be bothered to try to get them undercoated white, so instead I just brushed on some Foundry âCanvas Aâ paint. In doing so I sadly snapped off one of the feet off a wolf.
He is the wolf nearest to the rhino, his foot is the grey lump sitting next to the right hand wold. Luckily I didnât drop it so a bit of superglue fixed the problem after the photo was taken (I finished undercoating everything too).
I am starting to get a little worried as to how this whole thing is going to look when finished. Not sure why, probably just cold feet as it has taken me so long…
And finally, shock horror, my blog has now had, at last check, 6012 visitors with 19200 views. That is pretty amazing if I say so myself. I never ever, ever though I would get 1000 visitors. So a big thank you to everyone who has popped by and to everyone who keeps coming back. I really do appreciate it. âŁď¸
Got back late tonight so I never really had much time to get anything done. This afternoon I did manage to get a teeny bit more done on the trees. I added some more flock to the trees, both the dark and a lighter one to add some highlights….
The next question I have for those more knowledgeable is how the flippinâ heck do I seal the flock on. Choices I have here are spray varnish or a PVA water mix. Any help greatly appreciated.
Today I bought some brown spray paint, it was a satin finish, but for the trees I really doubt it will matter. So the four I did last night were given a spray…
I then hunted out my hair spray and gave them a dashed good squirt and then a blast with flock. I found that there was too much liquid on them and the flock dropped off when attached to droplets. I gave the next one a spin after soaking it. This certainly helped as less plopped off.
The lighting was a bit crap in the house, but I reckon you can see the difference between attempt one and attempt two…
Not perfect, but loads better than yesterdayâs version…
I will give them a blast of watered down PVA tomorrow and seal this lot in, or possibly will do the lighter flock for highlights first then onto the sealing. As you can see from the photo above the flock is very loose on the hairspray version, hardly any fell off on the spray glue…
I will have another go at making some more trees tomorrow (or start tonight) and then try again with the hairspray, another option is to retry the spray glue. One of the thing it has is this button that you turn to change the spray flow.
So Facebook has this memory thing that keeps popping up, today was a cracker from six years ago when my son was four…
We were watching a nature programme and he suddenly said..
âWhy arenât those camels blue?â
âWell camels arenât blue.â I replied.
âArctic camels are! Arctic camels are blue!â
âThere arenât any camels in the arctic!â
âThatâs because polar bears eat them!â He replied.
âJames, they cannot life in the arctic as it is too cold.â
âThatâs why they are blue!â he said triumphantly .
I tried really hard. âJames, camels canât get to the arctic as the sea is in the way.â
âWell they swim there!â He pointed out.
âI really donât think camels can swim THAT well.â
âAhhh Daddy, but you have forgotten, camels have swim knuckles!â
At that point I gave up… we never ever worked out what Swim Knuckles are.
But this camel seems to have them…
So tonight I tried my super duper spray glue and totally ballsed up… I hadnât realised that although super sticky, it was also foaming too…
So, after swearing lots, and lots and probably more than that I went back to square one and made another four. Tomorrow I will get the super hold hairspray out and give these a blast with that and then throw the flock on
I will get some lighter flock onto the other ones as a highlight so they are not a complete waste, it will give me practice in trying something new.
