From Peter D 28mm SYW Highlanders (45 points)

A second post for today, but no points bomb.    I have finished another 8 men for my 28mm SYW Highlanders.   Once again these are from from Perry, taken from the AWI  line.

It was a bit of a fight getting these to the finish line.  I had them based and terrain last night, when I realized that I had painted the lapels green instead of leaving them scarlet!  So hasty repaint while getting base paint all over my left hand.  Then the extreme cold, a flood in my university office and an emergency deep freezer defrost.  But here they are.  Phew!

I have to say that I have really been enjoying working on these figures, which is a good thing as I have a total of 30 to finish and I'm less than half way there.  The poses are wonderful and the details crisp which really helps pick out lapels and lace work.  Unlike some I have never had much problem with flash on Perry figures and these were no exception.  I could be that I don't notice, that I pick less popular molds or just that I am use to flash clean up having grown up painting Airfix soft plastics and early 1980s era  historicals.

Uniform wise of course the big item is the kilt, in this case the full meal deal belted plaid.  The tartan for the 87th (Keith's) Highlanders was "Government or Black Watch), which is one of the easier ones to paint.  At the time this was likely not strictly regimented (that's a Victorian intervention) and my guess is that various woollen mills were give an order based on an approximate description.

I used a dark blue base coat (mix of 50:50 Paynes Grey and Ultramarine Blue) with a cross hatched green pattern on top.  With the pleats and fold in the back, the green pattern become more "impression of cross hatching".  Over all the aim is to get a pattern that is a combination of dark blue and green in approximately the right tartan.  Pictures of reenactors (have I mentioned dhow much I love Pinterest) show that from any distance, the colours bleed into each other and the actual tartan becomes indistinct.  Add movement to the mix and you want a blue/green blur.

To provide some justification, I present as Exhibit A my go to source picture on Kilts.

Moi circa 1975 aged +/-13

By my count that is 8 figures @ 5 points each =40 points.  Woohoo, yeah me!

Quite the workload today, Peter! Frozen outside and broken freezer inside too, kinda ironic that! ;) I do like your idea of tartan painting and that rather helps build up the coourage to give it a shot myself. I'm pretty impressed with these bonny lads as you've even gotten the impression of their niffty socks down as well. I'm going to pip you another 5 points for the blackwatch, but that is also in part for the aged photo of yourself .