king derelict

I'm back albeit in a rather lethargic sort of way. The covid hung around much longer than I expected and although the symptoms were more annoying than life threatening I still seem to get really tired easily and find it difficult to work up any motivation. However coffee is starting to taste better so there is much to be grateful for. I spent most of yesterday staring at the model trying to remember what I was doing before I went to Europe While I was away a parcel of Woodland Scenic goodies came from the nice people at Mega Hobbies and should get me started on the landscapes. I think the end result will be a blend of the techniques suggested by @Egilman, @Canute , @Jack12477 and others. Many thanks for the help I reviewed the painted miniatures and touch up a few and I think they are as good as I can get them. I tried the Agrax Earth wash (thanks @Old Collingwood) and I like how its shaded and added to the shadows. Its toned down the yellow tunics a bit too. I played around with the hot wire cutter. It does a good job as long as you don't expect accuracy but its great for removing material and shaping hills. I have a lot extruded polystyrene so I think this will be used to block out the basic shapes. Hydrocal and plaster bandages will be used to achieve the final shapes. I had a bit of an experiment with one side of the tower and I think it will work. I'm endlessly rerunning the drone footage of the surrounding landscape. The Aedes Ars guide has now made it to the bin. The main towers are only sat in place while I was fiddling with the foam. I need to finish the ground and add the figures before hooking up the lighting and gluing it in place. A few of the figures have made it to the towers. Better photos tomorrow I hope My Spanish friend who kindly sent me the Loarre Castle kit a few years back was thoughtful enough to send something restorative for Christmas this year. A bottle of Franklin Four Maple Bourbon. It looks like a great covid antidote. Its great to be back. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a belated Happy New Year to all. Alan

Very nice work on the name board Alan

The paint has a lovely deep shine. It’s a shame about the metal foil Alan

Have great Christmas Ken. Alan

A safe and happy Christmas Dan. I’m looking forward to the continuation in 2024. They have a F104 with the Zero Length Launch rocket attached at the Berlin Gatow museum. I think it would help to have no imagination to fly one alan

All Best Wishes for Christmas alan

I built the 1/700 Flyhawk 1937 Hermes when I was a bit too new to the hobby to do it justice. It’s a lovely kit. alan

Thank you Andrew if you have to be sick, home is the best place. Icarus work with the RBL making some very nice stuff from recycled metals from WW1 shell fuses through F-35 wing panels. i would love a modern Ark or Hermes preferably in 1/700 by Flyhawk. Sea Vixens, Phantoms and Bucks i hope you have a wonderful Christmas (with a bit less wind than when I left) Alan

Thanks Craig. At least I wasn’t sick while I was wandering around Europe. That would have been really annoying. The trip was excellent. The Luftwaffe museum in Berlin and the airborne museum in Oosterbeck (Arnhem) are both spectacularly good. Happy Christmas Alan

Thank you OC. Dosing with vitamins and hydrating and laying around with the cats. I’m very pleased to have got the Hermes model. A very tiny piece of history. I hope you have a great Christmas alan

Thanks Ken. Things seem to be easing. The sense of taste has got a bit weird. Suddenly coffee and red wine taste very strange. At least tea still seems okay. I’ve bought Nate Greys Hazard Spectrum. He was a test pilot for F-35B at Pax for a while. I think I’m going back for the Mosquito book. I made the mistake of checking the 2022 and 2021 lists and bought two more there Happy Christmas alan

I’m back. I got home about midnight Tuesday after a miserable 20 hour travel day. I felt even worse on Wednesday morning so I did the nose / swab thing and Yup I’ve got Covid. Oh joy. Looks like being a quiet Christmas. i had hoped to be back on the castle but I think there may be some schedule slip. I just put up the Christmas tree and retired to the sofa to recuperate. There are some interesting titles in this list. I already fell victim to one. https://www.aerosociety.com/news/aerospace-book-choices-for-christmas-2023/?utm_campaign=2674865_22 Dec - Insight Blog Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_source=2674865_22 Dec - Insight Blog Roundup&dm_i=4OGU,1LBXT,33UWYK,7GP92,1 in am effort to add a little model content, I wanted to show something I acquired on my travels. From Trinity Marine and benefiting the Royal British Legion. Nice to have small piece of Hermes. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a joyous New Year Alan

Those are beautiful designs and paintwork. I guess it’s a different world now but somehow a Kia Rio doesn’t hold up against them. Looking forward to seeing this build Craig. Alan

I’m still out there. I’m sitting in front of the fire at my cousins cottage in North Wales and thinking about a glass of wine. Christmas markets in Berlin and Copenhagen were great and snow in Berlin made it look festive The Arnhem Airborne museum is spectacularly good. The photos are on my camera unfortunately but it’s definitely worth seeing Took my dad to the National Arboretum to make his yearly pilgrimage to the Parachute Regiment memorial They have a nice Pegasus bridge monument now Also new is the HMS Sheffield memorial, the Shiny Sheff I’m looking forward to catching up on logs when I get home. I’m getting badly behind but as usual the work is uniformly high standard. I should be home late on Tuesday. My cats have probably gone feral. Best wishes everyone alan

Beautiful neat work. It all looks so precise Alan

Thank you Jack I'm looking forward to it. Alan

Thank you Andrew I remember the east wind in Berlin this time last year. It cut through clothing like a knife. My dad is all fired up to visit the National Arboretum so I'm hoping for a decent there Alan

Thank you very much OC. I have the Agrax Earthshade so I will give it a try on one of the figures and see what we get. I am very impressed with the Pendraken figures, They have packed a lot of detail into such small figures and with the Mr Metal Primer I have been surprised at how well the paint has taken (apart from the yellow) Looking forward to the holiday; catching up with a lot of friends and family at a special time of year. Alan

Thank you @Old Collingwood, @Canute and @Egilman for some really helpful suggestions. I have screen mesh, plaster, extruded foam in sheets and blocks. I have ordered Hydrocal, plaster bandages and a hot wire foam cutter. Let the fun begin. I just cleaned the dust from the blocks out of the garage so I'm all ready for a new mess. I have been working on a selection of figures to add a bit of scale to the towers For the figures in slashed doublets and breeches I used a base yellow and dry brushed the red on top. I think its effective for the size of the figures. These figures are 10mm tall so there are limits - at least for me. I did try for moustaches and beards with varying degrees of success. I still need to touch up the details and correct some overpainting. I also need to decide on a colour for the shields> I was going for yellow but yellow seems to be a horrible paint to get good coverage with so maybe blue. SSerious medievalists and figure painters are probably running screaming for the hills. So far I am happy with some, less so with others but I will try to refine them. I am wondering whether to try a dark wash over the details but I'm concerned that the figures are so small it will overwhelm the paint. Any thoughts? There will be a bit of a break for a few weeks. I am working tomorrow and on Friday flying to Manchester UK to start a three week vacation. Starting with seeing a cousin in North Wales then flying to Copenhagen and then train to Berlin to visit more friends. Train to Arnhem and then Amsterdam before returning to the UK to spend a week with my 98 year old dad. It sounds like I can leave the flip flops and board shorts at home and think about some cold weather gear. Thanks for looking in and thank you for all the support and helpful comments Alan

Thank you Ken. I just ordered some plaster bandages. Very helpful suggestion. I remember the warm bit when I broke my arm. At least there won't be itching this time Alan

Thanks Jack. I ordered some Hydrocal. I have a roll of plastic screening mesh in the garage left over from replacing screens on the windows. Time to experiment. Thanks again. Some great suggestions Alan

Thank you EG. As always great advice. I'm thinking this might be the best solution for the steep sections. I suspect the solution may well be a combination of techniques using them in the appropriate areas. I think some experimenting on something expendable is a definite need before going for the real thing. Too much time invested in that brickwork Thanks again Alam

Thank you for the suggestions OC. I have some large blocks of extruded foam that was packing for some electronic thing that I have been saving with the landscaping in mind. My previous efforts with this stuff was complicated by the need to make deep cuts and my sharp knives didn't have the reach. Even sneaking a good kitchen knife didn't really do it. I just ordered a cheap hot wire cutter which I think might help. Alan

Putting the built elements together gave me a bit of a pause for thought. All that to be filled in? I think its a case of eating the elephant - one spoonful at a time. So I added some foam blocks to the cardboard supports for the tower. That has the happy advantage of providing a much better gluing area as well as more structural support. I added lights to the base of the outer towers and to the keep. I'm now experimenting with the ground cover in the towers. I had originally thought of a thin skim of coloured plaster with some sort of texture added but I was a little worried about it soaking and distorting the cardboard base and also cracking. Somewhere in my browsing I found yet another handy MIG product. This is an acrylic based product that has a gritty texture and comes in a variety of colours to simulate sand, clay, concrete and more. The MIG website shows it being brushed or spread on a variety of bases and looked pretty controllable (you can even mask it). Its supposed to be a mix of adhesive, pigment and texture and I suspect is something that you could make yourself given a bit of motivation So I tried some in one of the small courtyards and it would not stick to the cardboard base. I eventually got it to spread by diluting it with matte medium but it was a bit of a fight. I backed off to experiment a bit (should have done that first). I wondered if it was the slight shine on the cardboard that was the problem so I coated a trial piece with gesso. Let it dry and it made no difference. Stuck to the brush, stuck to the spatula and just stirred around on the base. For the next trials I painted a base coat of craft acrylics in brown and buff and then worked a diluted (water this time) mix over the top of it. The buff base works I think. I can work the texture to blend in the bases of the figures. So I think its a better option than the plaster but it is not behaving as MIG demonstrates. If anyone has used this stuff and can see what I'm doing wrong please let me know. As a relief from the fight with this texture stuff I selected a number of figures and gave then a coat of Mr Metal Primer. I then added a thin coat of gray acrylic primer mainly so I could see the details of the figure better. The initial painting has started and has a way to go!. Thanks for looking in, for the likes and comments Alan

Beautiful work Craig. Paintwork is immaculate alan