My first Highlanders ever

[Lluis of Minairons]

What? No red jackets there, but blue instead? What heresy is this?

Yes it might seem some kind of heresy, but it is just a fictional regiment of Scottish subjects in foreign service, that I'm using for my War of Spanish Succession what-if setting as part of a British foreign contingent. That's why their uniform colours are those of my what-if-Nation's army, rather than red.



I've built this regiment using Peter Pig figures from their AWI range, following a pattern usual in my 18^th century armies; so making it 18 figures strong, arranged on six 3 x 1,5 cm stands, inclusive of a command stand with the colonel, the regiment's colour and a piper. One figure at first line has seen its head swapped by that of a grenadier from Roundway, and there is a second leader figure at rear line, performing as an NCO.



Jackets are Royal Blue like those of the Catalan regiments in WSS, with light blue facings. Same combination of colours for their distinctive berets, whose feathers are red for the colonel, white for subordinate officers and black for the rank and file. Feathers are buttoned by a yellow cockade, as yellow is the colonel's sash too - just as those of their catalonian equivalents.



The colour is a traditional St. Andrew's Cross on blue field, with the Scotland coat of arms on the obverse and my what-if-Nation's one on the reverse (same as the Crown of Aragon full arms, as a matter of fact).



As for their kilts, it was my first time as said above - so before starting I browsed a bit around the Net to learn what methods or techniques have other hobbyists used for applying tartan designs.
I liked one of these and copied the procedure onto my own highlanders as follows:

1) First of all, I took care to select a pair of colours for the tartan subsceptible to show a contrast with the blue uniform - so I chose carmine red and medium green. I selected the red to form the kilt's base coat:



2) Later I painted onto it a thin grid of crossed vertical and horizontal lines, with a mix of those two colours. I had read that, if the kilt's back was pleated noticeably enough, just horizontal lines would suffice - so this is what I did:



3) At the time of washing, I was supposed to proceed as usual - in my case, with a mix of black and brown washes from Vallejo:



4) Now it was time for some highlighting. I first painted small green dots on the grid intersections - compulsory to use your thinnest brush here!



5) And right afterwards, some similarly minute red dots on the squares delimited by the  grid:



...And that's all, actually. Not a master piece of art, indeed; but if we take into account the figures small size, I'd humbly recommend this as a more than convenient way to achieve the desired visual effect - besides of being a technique in the reach of many!

Thanks for reading,
Lluís

[Colonel Kilgore]

Very nice, Lluis - many thanks for sharing the details of how you achieved this lovely-looking unit!

Simon

[martin goddard]

They are marvellous

[pbeccas (Paul)]

Very impressive.  Great work on the kilts. 

[Westie]

Well done. I do like the tartan. It still scares me off from painting up highlanders but that step by step 'guide' might just be the remedy for me.

[Leman (Andy)]

Very nice work Luis. Thanks for the quick tutorial as well.

[Colonel Kilgore]

Well done. I do like the tartan. It still scares me off from painting up highlanders but that step by step 'guide' might just be the remedy for me.

Likewise - I thought he might have cheated by using special tartan paint, but no, he's done it properly!

[Nick]

Great work. They really do look good.

Nick

[Lluis of Minairons]

I thought he might have cheated by using special tartan paint, but no, he's done it properly!

Shhhhhh... 

[mellis1644]

wow very impressive !