Vikings preparing for the raiding season

“Heathen men came and miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter.”

According to the English Heritage website the infamous vikings raid on Lindisfarne took place on 8th June. 1231 years ago today! So this morning I jumped in the car first thing in the morning and drove the hour or so north of my house to the holy island. 

I arrived shortly after 8am, about 10 minutes after the tide had cleared the causeway, so the drive across to the island was a bit damp, but safe enough. 

Parking in the visitors car park, a short walk from the only village on the island, it’s clear that they really don’t want you to get caught by the tide when you leave. There’s timetables and warning posters all over the place.

I don’t know the island well, but I remember that they have a ruined priory and a castle: surely one will provide a decent place to take photos of my minis? The Priory turns out to be closer to the car park, so I headed there first. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a decent angle and it didn’t open for a couple of hours, so I decided to cut my losses and try the castle.

I found what I was after almost at once: the castle in the distance and a beach in the foreground.

The invaders quickly make there way from the beach, killing without mercy.

Some walkers heading towards the castle passed me while I was taking the photos, but no one came over to ask what I was up to. I like to think that as I was kneeling on the grass, trying to get a decent angle they assumed I was a praying pilgrim.

When I was finished I worked out where the walkers had come from, and decided to head back to the village that way. This route brought me behind the Priory with a lovely view of it, so I quickly took out a couple of the vikings and took a snap.

“The church of St Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishing, exposed to the plundering of pagans.”

With that, I headed back to the car.

Reviewing the photos when I got home I realise that taking shots outside is really difficult. Sometimes the sun is too bright and all the shots were backlit, it’s impossible to get everything in focus, real grass isn’t 28mm scale. I mean… it’s a nightmare out there.

Saying that, I did really enjoy my stroll in the early morning sunshine.

I liked the embossed nature of both of the banners, making it easy to produce a decent looking standard without free hand skills.

The shield maidens were also refreshingly realistic and not fantasy pin-ups.

I should’ve replaced the bendy spears with some brass ones though.

So that’s all the figures from the Kickstarter painted. All I need to do to finish the project is take a photograph of them outside. Hopefully my plans will come to fruition.

I liked the embossed nature of both of the banners. It made it relatively easy to produce a decent looking banner with my limited free hand skills. The shield maidens are realistic too: not pin ups with swords.

That’s all the figures from the Kickstarter painted, so I just need to get a decent photo of them outside.

Next we have some monks. Some are clearly running for their lives, while others are involved in their daily chores. Quick and easy paint jobs with only about 3 or 4 colours on each model.

There’s also a cow in the collection, which I decided to paint like one of the  “Chillingham Herd“.

These are ancient, wild cattle that have been kept in a walled park for hundreds of years so they may well be the kind of cows these Anglo Saxon monks farmed.

I’d always fancied visiting them, until I found out that the minor nobility that owns them is related to Dominic Cummings in some way.

Finally in this batch there’s a young woman with a basket of mushrooms. I resisted the urge to paint the mushrooms with red, spotted caps, but I was intimidated by her dress for a day or two. After a while I decided to take inspiration from the film ‘Midsommar’ and keep the dress white with one colour for the accents.

The first batch is 5 viking warriors.

Priming reveals that there is a lot of flash and mould lines, some of which would destroy texture of chainmail if I tried to remove. Others I simply can’t be arsed to remove.

A week or 10 days later, speed paint gives us these.

These minis have sat in the box that they were delivered from a Sally Forth Kickstarter 10 months ago. To be honest, I have project that are a lot older that I could’ve tackled for the spring clean challenge, but I opted for this as it seemed like it would stretch me while also being achievable. I also have an idea for the ‘outdoor photo’ category.

I plan to paint as fast as I can (which isn’t very fast), using speed and contrast paints in batches.