"Painting Plaid?" Topic

Does anybody know of a good way to paint plaid? I wanted to do a cool Blackwatch plaid, but I don't seem to have any luck so far.

I was hoping that maybe somebody has a plaid tutorial on some painting site, or maybe just a few pointers right here….

All help is appreciated!

This helped me.

link

I did a full "How to" on painting Tartan for a Painters Workshop article in a previous issue of Fictional Reality.

PDF link

This question came up a few days ago about WW1 figures, check the previous posts as maybe there were other answers/guides linked from there.

I use Plaid paint.

Nice job Rob .. And I didn't even mind going the almost 80 pages to get to it! Good figure reviews in that especially.

I find that most figures (even 28mm) are too small to put much detail so I use an abstract approach to painting plaid (less is more).

for Black Watch I paint the kilt or plaid dark blue. Then I paint vertical lines in a light green. Don't place the lines too close together or else things look cluttered. After the vertical lines are painted, go back and paint two horizontal lines around the figure. I call these lines window panes.

Now, anywhere the two green lines meet, put a dab of green that is lighter than the color green used on the window panes. Just a single green dot at each intersectiion. This will complete a reasonable looking pattern that suggests the government sett used for the Black Watch.

Remember that because the figures are small, the actual colors won't stand out, so use brighter colors.

For examples, go to my blog and go through the recent archives for April and May about the Jacobite Rebellion, click on the pics to enlarge them, and look at the technique close up.

altefritz.blogspot.com

Don't paint plaids. My challenge is tweed.

Can you go to a highland/Scottish games and do some research by looking at the pipe bands? Many of the old Regimental tartans like Gordon will be there and of course Black Watch/government. Prepare beforehand by taking along a figure in the scale you want to paint and just hold it up to your eye to compare with the humans when they both appear to be the same size.

Concentrate on the kilt and take a good hard look at how much detail you can really make out of the sett/lines in the kilt. The first time I did this was over two decades ago wen the sadly missed 1/Gordon Highlanders pipes and drums came through Sacramento's Arco Arena. I was two seat rows away from the arena floor, with 20/20 vision and using 15mm Sudan War figures. What stunned me was when I did my comparison, the kilt on the real highlandr was mostly dark green and showed no a sign of the "cheesy Gordon" yellow line.

Don't buy highlanders (except WW1 ones with aprons over the top and just a tiny bit showing, which, in 15mm, you can get away with painting dark blue).
Actually, the Black Watch tartan is really very dark and I reckon you can get away with a suggestion of dark blue and green.

I thought that the step-by-step guide at this site was helpful:
link

(Found on this TMP thread, posted by Velleyboy:
TMP link )