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Help please ! I have a full grid but am struggling to locate the 17 regularly arranged contiguous cells. C... S.... and V...... I (meaning 1 ?) run downwards in a partially regular manner from right to left, but even if that's right - which I think is doubtful - I cannot see from the photos of the PORTRAIT that I have found which colours to use for shading, save for - presumably - p... b... for the d.. (and b...n in that cell ?)

Hi son1ofrover1, I think you're looking for a more complicated endgame than is necessary and you've already sussed it: the 17 cells should be b... with 1having a pbd in an appropriate approximate position.

Many thanks Ginge. I think I'll go for the 9th cell for the pbd and shade it & the rest b... k, not b...

Hi again son1ofrover1, do you not mean b???n

Apologies if I mislead you with my 1st post, miscounted the number of dots which I used to be consistent with you, I should have used ?s.

B...n it is then (even though it doesn't appear in a jagged - as opposed to straight - line in the PORTRAIT and b...k - to represent s...e - would therefore seem more appropriate). Oops, I'm over thinking again!

Hi again son1orover1. If you google "pbd" and look at the Wiki entry it mentions the colour of the band the pbd appears in.

Is the pbd supposed to coincide with/fill one of the 17 letters to be shaded? That letter occurs relatively farther down the grid than in the original portrait, but it would arguably make the solution more elegant.

Hi riversk, as I don't submit I hadn't given the placement much thought until a friend asked me the same question last evening. I think there will have to be leeway when assessing individual entries but I agree that option is certainly more elegant, if unlike me with Homer-finger like letters in each cell the relative proportions would be distorted. I know this doesn't help much, sorry.