A comment rail on a recent post over at
analogue hobbies moved off on a tangent on painting highlanders. I'd be interested in hearing how others conquer the kilt. My personal approach has always been to forget the details and get the big picture right. While the actual tartans have a lot of detail up close, from any distance when the kilt is being worn and thus moving constantly, the details merge into a blur of earth tones. Therefore I treat a tartan like a camo pattern - a base coat with a regular semi-contrasting blotchiness on top. If I get a checkerboard or line pattern into the mix, so much the better but I certainly won't beat myself up for not getting them if the overall looks good from a distance.
Somewhere in in a rubber maid in my basement I have 25mm colonial highlanders from 3 regiments, 2 in kilts and one in trews. If I get a chance to dig them out and take a photo I'll post them later. Until such time I'll make do with the following historical photos.
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Yes it's me, yes it's the 70s. 'Nuff said! I can't recall what tartan it was, but you can't tell from the photo.
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Same city, but much less emotional scarring from modern re-enacters of the 78th at the Halifax Citadel. Regardless of the official pattern - it looks like very dark green with thin white line.
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Black Watch reenacters and the tartan has almost merged into a solid dark green. Personally I'm far more worried about the dicing on the socks and bonnets.
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| Don't know which regiment of tartan but it looks like a dark rust background with a light rust line over top. And these guys are standing still, at a trot it would be just a rust blur. |
You might have warned your readership before unleashing your knees on an unsuspecting world!
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the review in Military Modelling a few decades back of 'tartan paint'? Sadly it was a spoof. I would never attempt to detail paint tartan - lucky my 'local' regiment is the Black Watch...
Tim
DeleteI'm sure the emotional scarring will heal with aid of a wee dram. I don't remember the MilMod spoof, but I do reacll an episode of "Home Improvement" featuring "Al coloured paint" (Al being the plaid shirt clad butt of Tim's jokes). It featured a paintbrush that looked to paint in tartan (the tartan was hidden behind white chalk and the paint brush held only water).
Cheers
PD
Stripes, its all about criss-crossing stripes. I do my kilts in a cross between how the real things are woven and the old Britain's toy soldier short cut. This was about to turn into a long comment so maybe I'll do a post on tartans and how I do it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's the even easier method than what I do, apart from the Camerons, all of the military tartans are based on the black watch but with a thin over stripe. You can get away with a very dark bluish green base and add very thin over stripes, 3 vertical lines in front (1 behind sporran) and horizontal ones all the way around. Black for the Black Watch, yellow for the Gordons, white & red for the Seaforths. For the Cameron's I'd go dark green with extra red stripes.
Ross
DeleteThanks for the ideas - I think I do something similar.
Cheers
PD
I've attempted a couple of different tartans with varying degrees of success using this guide (http://www.angelfire.com/tx/ToySoldier/tartan.htm), but would be the first to concede that painting a decent sized unit would be far too time consuming. A nod to the pattern by using strong verticals and horizontals of appropriate colours should get the the job done.
ReplyDeleteMichael
DeleteThanks for the link
Cheers
PD
Is it common for Canadian scout troops to be kilted? I realise of course the historic links with Scotland, but had not realised it extended to Canadian scout uniforms.
ReplyDeleteMike
DeleteNo the standard Canadian uniform does not include a kilt. Our group was kilted, thanks to a sponsorship by the Halifax North British Society. I think there are/were other groups with similar arrangements but they were in the minority to say the least.
Peter