My latest blog is all about the oldest image of Stirling Castle open.substack.com/pub/stirling...

We are excited to announce that Wikimedia UK has been awarded a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to safeguard access to the UK’s 3D heritage data and create a sustainable future, through the UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk Project To find out more, visit: buff.ly/7xdl9Ci

It’s so incredibly dispiriting to see such heavy use of generative AI in the documentary on the Palace of Holyroodhouse on C5 right now. Errors everywhere. I’m not surprised, though.

39 survey responses so far! 💪🎉 Can you help me get to a nice round 50? If you, a colleague or connection work with cultural heritage #3D data in the #UK please share or complete this survey: forms.gle/Wn7mtVM5ZnzU... #H3DAR #GLAM3D #museums #galleries #archives #libraries

Updating this already after looking again at an old photograph and realising that I hadn’t added crow steps to the south transept gable. I’m blaming Lorimer’s drawing for leading me astray, but partly my own silly fault for not checking. #DevilInTheDetail 😬

Whitekirk St Mary's #EastLothian drawing (after Lorimer) finished. With and without its lime-render. Pre-1914 windows, but probably not original. #Procreate

It was wonderful to attend this brilliant open day, learn about the ReACH project, and so good to know that Whitekirk St Mary’s has a promising future in community hands.

#EngWal Rugby #SixNations game is unwatchable due to terrible TV signal reception. Is this an ITV thing, or just us? So frustrating. 🏉 Watching the Winter Olympics coverage instead!

Having fun this evening on the tablet visualising St Mary’s Church, Whitekirk with a lime render. #Procreate #iPad #EastLothian

Rewatched an old Time Team episode from Holy Island today that suddenly had me stressed out that I might have overlooked something important in one of my visual reconstructions, but the programme ends inconclusively, so I’ve started breathing again. 😳

Really heartening as a (potential) exhibitor to see this policy explicitly in place at @tabletopscot.bsky.social. Thank you. Other convention organisers please take note.

We've got two fabulous and FREE heritage days coming up this week. Both are kindly hosted by the new owners of the historic St Mary's Church in Whitekirk in East Lothian, as part of our @churchheritage.bsky.social collaborative project with our colleagues at @socantscot.bsky.social. (Read on 🧵1/4)

Getting my head around this new MTD accounting software malarky, and annoyed with myself for wasting most of my weekend, stressed and baffled by a minor discrepancy in my books that turns out to be an error caused by my own mistrust of how clever the accounting software actually is. #FreelanceWoes

An excellent online resource! I suppose all these things cost money, but it would be wonderful one day to have more complete LIDAR coverage of Scotland's landscape and not just the coastal and river/flood plain areas. The data would be so helpful for some of my projects. #GIS

Remember back in the 1990s, before the dawn of Google, when we berated companies whose websites only worked in certain browsers and displayed the badge "website best experienced with Microsoft Internet Explorer"? Yeah, it's apparently still a thing more than 20 years later. Looking at you, Adobe.

How should we interact with 3D history online? 🏺🖥️ Join our workshop to visually prototype a new platform for UK #CulturalHeritage 3D data. Help us design the features that bring artifacts to life. Sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-heritag... #H3DAR #GLAM3D

And thus, winter ends. Although it doesn’t feel like it at the moment!

Streaming now with commentary👇

"From grand old Viking centuries Up-Helly-Aa has come Then light the torch and form the march, and sound the rolling drum." Happy #UpHellyAa! 19.30pm (GMT). Follow the livestream link 👇 from 18:45. The weather forecast isn't brilliant for this evening's festivities, so it should be interesting!

Light Falloff is one of the most important things to internalize, when building any kind of a lighting scheme. It's as crucial as softness, coverage, power, color and other fundamental properties of light. #art #digitalart #tips

In a homage to our great national bard, here's one of my heritage projects from almost two decades ago. It's a simple interactive tour I developed for Robert Burns House in Dumfries, brought to life with 3D images, 360-degree panoramic photography, narration, and poetry readings. #BurnsNight

Made a few improvements to my online portfolio to provide more context with my reconstruction images. I'll include more paradata with the projects I post in future. With so many now questioning image authenticity because of AI, I feel it's more important than ever to declare my sources & references.

"writing a novel with generative AI is just as valid as any other method, because AI is just another tool" Out of interest, at what age did you discover that you were stupid?

Nature at work, making an impressive cutaway visual. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Too difficult!

I don't know which castle that's meant to depict, but it's definitely not one I've visited. Do better, Glasgow City Council.🤦‍♂️ www.thenational.scot/news/2578067...

Beginning a slow divorce from Adobe software after twenty-seven years. Will keep the PSD/Lightroom bundle and the Substance 3D tools going a while longer, but I can no longer justify subscribing to the entire Creative Suite. Probably should have done this a long time ago.

I’ve been shut in an office with no view for the last few months, so I just had to stop for a few minutes on my journey to Kelso this morning to drink in this wonderful #ScottishBorders landscape looking across the cloud-filled Tweed Valley towards the Cheviot Hills. #ReiverCountry

Enjoyed getting out of the office today for my first site visit of 2026 and meeting with some lovely folks from Kelso Heritage Society. Hopeful of doing something to mark 900 years of the founding of its Tironensian Abbey & monastery if I can manage to fit it around other projects. Fingers crossed!

Oh no. Hope the folks at Smart History are okay. This is their building, I think. Fire crews tackling blaze at St Andrews University tech lab www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Much admired artist. Please give Alberto a follow 👇

Hi, new followers. NDAs prevent me from saying much about my current project, except that it's an enjoyable change from my usual work and a collaboration with another reconstruction artist. We've been working non-stop on it for the last 4 months and should finish it in April or May if all goes well.

Hi #PortfolioDay. 🖌️I'm an Architectural Illustrator from Edinburgh. I enjoy visually reconstructing old buildings and monuments using 3D models and digital paintings. My work is guided by archaeology, measured survey data, and collaboration with historians/archaeologists. Website: bobmarshall.co.uk

Much looking forward to Peter's talk on Edinburgh Castle's lost Royal Lodgings this week. Tickets are still available (online and in person). 👇 My work on the Palace of Holyroodhouse in James V's reign may make an appearance ;)

Good advice here. I’ve naively thought of myself as indestructible, and will continue working with unlimited energy, but I am finding out the hard way that the body has other plans for me now I’m over 50!

Listening to the Today programme's Carnyx feature on Radio 4 this morning reminded me of.... Carnyx Jazz Club

My folks in Aberdeenshire are telling me things are pretty bad up there, with deep snow drifts making rural roads impassable, and local shops are out of essentials and unable to restock. I lived up there 30 years and remember some epic winters, but they're saying this is the worst they've ever seen.

Not riding my regular bike at the moment due to work commitments and the need for new prescription sports glasses. So, it's indoor cycling via the Rouvy app instead, which is becoming seriously addictive - esp. riding (virtually) in other countries, and the new feature to upload saved GPX routes.

Money for Nothing. Dire Straits. Inspired by its groundbreaking video, I told my high school art teachers that I wanted to produce computer graphics, and they scoffed at me. Here I am four decades later with a whole career built on pursuing that dream. RIP MTV

Despite some upsets, 2025 turned out to be rather enjoyable, with visits to some fantastic heritage sites. Hoping for more of the same in 2026; the site visits, not the upsets! Wishing you all a great New Year!

Loving this time of the year where I grab the rare opportunity to appreciate the animated films made by big teams of super-talented CGI artists - the likes of which I can only dream of hiring to help me with the projects I am trying to tackle singlehandedly with a barely negligible budget!

Wishing all my followers a pleasant and peaceful festive break. See you all on the other side. 🎄

I've experienced quite few rough sailings on the overnight ferry to Shetland, but never quite this rough. Some days I think generative AI should only be used by people with a license.

Hope the Dalkeith motorcyclist I assisted late last night got home okay. Came off his bike on treacherously icy, untreated back roads near where I live. Not sure I'd be riding two wheels of any kind under such conditions.

Next year I'm starting a side project about old-school book illustrators. Does anyone know if there's an online database where I can search for all the books a person has illustrated? I've looked in archive.org, worldcat.org with limited results. Thanks! #books #booksky #illustration #illustrator

You will be visited by Three Spirits. In a material world?

Working an AGFA Repromaster photo-mechanical transfer camera in a busy ad agency darkroom, pre-digital era. My artwork had to be finalised, signed-off, correctly exposed, developed, dried with a hairdryer, and handed to the dispatch rider in time to make the newspaper publishing deadline each day.

I have spent today, Sunday, building a 17th-century timber church in Blender 3D and used a sim to set it on fire for a scene prop. Lord, forgive me for my sins.

Labours of the Months: December…. ….enjoying the fruits of August’s labours. Wild blackberry and apple crumble was completely delicious!

📢 Archaeological Illustrators 👇 Urras nan Tursachan (The Standing Stones Trust) is seeking new illustrations for its Calanais Standing Stones Visitor Centre. Full brief at calanais.org/exhibition-i... Tender application deadline: 18 Dec 25 Please share