Caledonian Volunteer- Chain Rifle and Painting Tartan

They may take our lives but they'll never take our FREEDOM!

For 6 points- you get an order, a chain rifle and not much else.

Bargain!

The netrod that shoots- and doesn't fly off the table.

For an old sculpt- I'm a fan.

Aye, laddie!

I am very happy with how that strange duffel bag/ sack has turned out.

Guarding deployment zones since 2005.

I was holding off painting this figure because I had no idea how to paint tartan.  Specifically- The Black Watch tartan.  I did some research and found a very informative blog post from a Battletech fan and started painting.

And I'm going to warn you... it is a painful process... at first.


PAINTING TARTAN- THE BLACK WATCH TARTAN

First off you are going to need a size 0 brush or a fantastic size 1 brush.

I used a size 1 brush- Windsor and Newton Series 7- fantastic, most awesome brush ever created by Western Civilization.  I cannot recommend it enough- it is superb (just expensive... but the trade off in quality is worth it).

Now that's been sorted out...

Green lines on a blue background

Stage 1: Base coat VMC Dark Prussian Blue.

Stage 2: Wash: VGI- Blue.  I don't know how useful that is... but I thought it would help define the depths.

Stage 3: Thin vertical lines- evenly spaced- of VGC Sick Green.

Stage 4: Thin horizontal lines- evenly spaced- of VGC Sick Green

Rear pleats are troublesome.

Stage 5:  Highlight each pleat with VGC Sick Green and then paint in small strokes of horizontal VGC Sick Green.  Be careful not to go too heavy on the paint and blot out the dark creases.

Highlight the blue squares

Stage 6: Thin out a 50:50 mixture of Dark Prussian Blue and Citadel: Teclis Blue.  Paint this over the raised areas of the blue squares.  The highlight again with Citadel Teclis Blue.  Finally just do a tiny amount of Citadel: Lothern Blue on the edges of the kilt and where the folds of the kilt occur over the legs.  (You can see this best on the model's right thigh- over the knee).

Stage 7:  Where the green lines cross- paint in a tiny dot of VMC Olive Green.  (I wanted Citadel Scorpion Green aka VMC Light Green 942- but I didn't have it- so I improvised).

White and Red facings.

Stage 8: Black base coat the bottom of the hat and the jacket cuffs.

Stage 9:  Using VMC Cavalry Brown paint a thin horizontal line bisecting the cuffs and the hat.  This is hard!  Then paint in the dividing vertical lines.  This creates a red cross design with little black squares.  Use black paint to tidy it up once complete.

Stage 10: Using VGC Cold Grey paint in the little black squares between the red lines.  Once complete, use VGC Ghost Grey to highlight the grey areas.

Stage 11:  I then painted a tiny red dot in the middle of the red crosses with Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Lots of tartan.

It is not a perfect technique but certainly adequate for giving the suggestion of tartan to the casual gaming observer.

Until next time.