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Submarines, Goblins and on the Boat Again

As I am on the boat again, I had a mooch at my Kickstarter pledges.

First up, the one I am most excited about!

Ever since playing Silent Hunter on my PC I have loved submarines. As soon as I saw this I wanted it. Hopefully it will live up to my expectations!

Basically the game ties into an app that shows targets, plays sounds and generally makes it a bit more exciting. It even has whisper mode…. don’t make too much noise when the sub chasers are looking for you.

Next up… Miremarsh….everyone plays a goblin!

I wanted something to play with the kids, and this looked quirky enough to fit the bill.

For some reason I backed a pile of gravestones, really don’t know why… must have been a moment of weakness as I have a pile already!

And finally a couple of books by my best mate Wiggy, who is my gaming buddy.

My gravestones should be here soon, the sub game in December and Miremarsh in August 2019. I already have the RPG books.

Only thirteen more hours to go until I get back to Shetland!

Wish me luck…

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No Painting Tonight☹️

Sat on a boat midway between Shetland and Orkney…

Well okay if truth be known I am nearer Orkney, having left Shetland five and a half hours ago, with twenty minutes to go before getting into harbour. I eventually arrive in Aberdeen at 07.00 tomorrow.

In one of my earlier blog posts I rambled on about never being able to find the stuff I want. Luckily my eagle eyed mate spotted a Starship Troopers game, complete with maps and stand up card figures….

Huzzah!

I haven’t a clue what the rules are like, but I want it for its parts. Success! Plus you can’t really complain when you get it for £15 posted.

And as a coincidence…tonight’s onboard entertainment.

So once my mate has finished running his Star Trek RPG we will be joining SICON as the mobile infantry to protect the United Citizens’ Federation.

The campaigns of Pluto await!

I managed to amass all of the available DVD’s relating to Starship Troopers including the original Roughnecks series. Which I liked more than I thought I would.

I am considering getting the graphic novels, but with the DVD collection mentioned above, I reckon I have a fair bit of source material, after I finish with all of the missions and campaigns in the various books.

Tomorrow, I have about one hour to charge around Aberdeen after my meetings before heading back home on the boat again. It seemed like a really good idea at the time to go by boat. Twenty four hours travelling for six hours of meetings. It takes one hour by plane!

Anyway what follows is a a picture of kirkwall in the dark!

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The Gentlemen of Sleepy Hollow

I managed to get some paint onto these.

Sadly I didn’t get them finished☹️. Too tired tonight! And tomorrow I am on the boat south.

Anyway I present the gentlemen.

If I have one real complaint about these it is the faces, some look really good and others look like they have been hit with a shovel. Ichabod looks particularly weird. This coming from someone who has no skill in this area at all. As the others look really good I would suggest it is a problem with the casting rather than the initial modelling skill.

So once I get back I will finish the ones above then move onto these.

That will mean the whole Sleepy Hollow set will be painted.

After that onto the Militia in the background and thence onto the new stuff still in th3 packet.

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The Ladies of Sleepy Hollow

I did a bit of painting tonight.

I think I needed chill out from my first day back at work.

Anyway the ladies are finished. I much prefer this batch painting to a bit of paint here and there on multiple figures. I even managed to highlight them all. Something I wasn’t doing to the whole lot.

Tomorrow I think I will do a set of a half dozen gentlemen. I will then have to wait until Friday to do any more as I am off South on the boat to some training in Aberdeen.

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Headless Horseman and a Pair of Shoes

I managed to paint something…

This pair is from the Blue Moon Headless Horseman set. All of the others are individual characters from Sleepy Hollow. The Horseman comes as a mounted and dismounted figure.

Instead of the all black figure from the various films etc I decided to make him a bit more colourful, well he had been a soldier, Not sure what colour the Hessian cavalry actually were, but as I had a dark green and a red, I thought why not. I went a bit wild on the grey highlights on the horse, this will need sorting. Instead of adding a bit of paint to numerous figures at once. I decided to finish just this pair. The rest of them can be seen in the background.

A right hodgepodge of colours 😱

I think for the rest I will do them in groups of five or so instead of trying to add a bit of a certain colour of paint to random figures.

Once these are finished I have another 72 to make a start on.

Then onto the ……who knows, so much to do.

And finally I managed to finish a pair of shoes.

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Star Forts, Chips and an Annoying Fledgling

Another mooch about yesterday. Last day of my holiday and I had to be in work. As it is the holidays I had to drag the kids in too.

So instead of haring back home for sandwiches we headed further into town for Lunch. All the cafes were full so we headed for the Fort Chip Shop (the best one in Lerwick). Our normal place to eat them on a nice day is the Fort right above the chip shop so I thought I would take some photos.

This is the oldest part still standing built or rebuilt in the 1690’s. The following photo showing how thick the walls are.

Construction of Fort Charlotte began in 1665 during the second Dutch War. It wasn’t finished before the war concluded. It was rebuilt more than a century later during the War of American Independence but never fired a shot in anger. The fort is pretty much presented as it would have looked in the 1780’s

The fort is a 5 pointed star.

At the minute she is armed with 18lb cannon. These only look out over the sound of Bressay. It had in the past been armed with 32lb cannon

I always fancied starting a re-enactment group here, it would be great fun!

Anyway the Annoying Fledgling…. here he is:

He spent his time calling for food non stop while we were there. On the upside though, he kept the adults away!

Right a couple of random photos taken within… the barracks and the magazine.

And finally a view from above… pinched from a panel at the entrance!

You can just see the best chip shop in Lerwick, small white building near the two story street of shops. Oh and in the background you can see the Lerwick Town hall.

There is a great story from the 1690’s about how 3 cannon from the Spanish Armanda were found. They decided to heat them to remove the rust. ‘ Upon which they discharged balls, much to the surprisement of the onlookers!”

I think Surprisement should be returned to the English language!

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Drummers, civilians,off gallivanting and a leather shoe.

Well I managed to get the drummers up to a ‘yeah finished’ point. I also threw some paint on the civilians.

My order from Old Glory Uk came and sadly it is wrong. My rangers haven’t arrived but another packet of woodland Indians have… I ordered the Indians in error but contacted them straight away to ask for a swap to the Rangers looks like they forgot. Harumph!

I also managed to get a shoe to the Finished point. Only nine to go.

This has a top and back seam to help turn it. 2mm upper and a 4mm sole. I have enough of the upper leather to make us all a pair (I hope) but unfortunately only enough of the thicker stuff to do one more pair.

Our exploration was sort of Viking based. With the dry weather Girlsta loch had dropped enough to allow us to head out onto the holm (an island not far from the far shore. Local legend has it that a Viking princess is buried there (as legends go, they are always princesses). The story goes she was skating on the loch and went through the ice, which was a bit unfortunate as the loch is one of, if not the deepest on Shetland sitting at 78 feet deep. Anyway after a bit of research we came across information in one of the Saga’s.

Geirhilda the daughter of the famous Flokie Vilgerdason was the young lady in question. Flokie had left Norway to find Iceland …it had been found accidentally twice before, but he was off to deliberately find it. He overwintered on Shetland when the accident happened. He then went off and found what he was looking for. He wasn’t that impressed and named it Iceland after seeing a bay filled with sea ice.

Now local legends also have, star crossed lovers, 🙄🤮. Her suitor was not accepted by her father and after a sneaky meeting with him she fell through the Ice and died. Strangely enough the saga doesn’t mention this, or ice or skating or anything really. It does say that “there Geirhild, his daughter, perished in Geirhild’s water.”

So there we have it … a legend and sort of evidence… Girlsta…Geirhild…there aren’t any other Girlsta’s up here so it could be a match.

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The Leather Ripped🤬

“Oh poot!”…well I think that is what I said…

Turning the shoe the right way round is always a nightmare, but this time using leather that was old and weary probably wasn’t clever. This stuff had been in a damp shed that froze every winter. I oiled,it hence the dark colour, to try and get it back to a useable quality. The leather, when I started was nearer the colour of the table top.

Luckily I have a half hide of better quality leather that has stayed in my attic. I shall start again tonight.

This time I think I will do a front seam, that should stop it tearing, and make it easier to turn. It will be a shoe similar to these.

Posted on by maenoferren22

I have a shoe….

Only nine more to go!

Well I eventually managed to finish sewing on first shoe. The fun bit is going to be turning it the right way round. Now if I had been sensible I would have started with the biggest, then things would get quicker as they got progressively smaller.

I also managed to get shoe maker finger, caused by pulling the linen thread tight. Sliced right into the little finger on both hands.

This thing has driven me demented. I really am out of practice.

To begin with I put the sole on upside down, then part way around I realised that the upper was to big for the sole. A bit of remedial cutting was required to get it to fit.

It is too big for my youngest but as it is inside out, it will shrink a bit as it is turned.

back to the sewing I go!

Once they are both done I will shove them into a bucket of water for a good while to soften the leather and then get them turned the right way out. This usually involves a great deal of swearing and funny grunting noises. So if you hear a lot of expletives in a Geordie accent carried on the wind you will know who it is.