How I cheated at painting a tartan

[Geoff Davis]

I needed to paint a tartan.  The miniature and the reason are here:

02178 Knight Templar with Royal MacKenzie Tartan

 

Painting a tartan in detail would be very hard.  Here is the source material picture I worked from.

Most of the tutorials I looked at involved painting a black grid and then painting in each square individually.  I'm too lazy, was in too much of a hurry and don't have the quality of eyesight for that. 

My daughter who is a highland dancer and water colour painter helped me figure it out.  We figured out which of the lines of the tartan would actually be visible at arm’s reach.  Then we worked out which colours are forming those lines.  Tartans aren't generally composed of stripes of solid colours.  The colours come from the mixing of two colours of wool interwoven.  So, we worked out which two colours were involved in each stripe. 

For example, red and green give you brown.  So, by putting a stripe of green glaze over red basecoat, I get a brown stripe.  If I put a second green stripe over the red at a 90 degree angle, I get another brown stripe, but where the two cross I get a green square with crisp corners.  I put a thinned dot of the green in the middle of that square to deepen the green colour, and voila, a cross hatch of brown stripes and green squares on red.

Then I sketched a map of it, noting that the tartan is not a perfectly spaced grid, and selected colours which when added together will produce the colours needed. 

The map: 

This proved to be still too difficult to paint clearly, so the number of thin lines was further reduced for simplicity. 

I started with a red basecoat and gave it minimal highlighting and shading.  Then I started with one black line running parallel to the characters belt, midway between hem and belt.  This is marked on the photo below.  This gave me the line from which to measure out and place all the other lines. 

After that it was, in order:

- green horizontal stripes

- green vertical stripes

- enhance green squares

- black lines. 

The lines in the source material are not actually black, they are sets of black lines and blue lines.   So each black line was traced over with blue as well to tone it down  a bit and give a slight blue hue.  It may not seem like much, but the before and after change was remarkable.  Then the very thin yellow lines, with paint thinned somewhat.  Finally a yellow dot at the intersection of the yellow lines. 

Here's a close-up with the starting line marked. 

It doesn’t look very good up close, but it looks good from a distance.

Looks pretty good in other colours, too.

Iron Wind Metals 67-005 Female Sibeccai 

I have some miniatures on the way in the mail which I had intended to use for practicing tartan and other free hand designs.  I will post one as a step by step at a later date. 

 

Geoff

[Schirf]

Wow. Love this!

 

I have a ton of old GW Bretonnian archers that would probably work great for practicing on.

 

Thanks for sharing!

Edited January 20, 2018 by Schirf

[Envii]

Wow!  Thanks for the detailed tutorial! At first look at the picture I thought to myself that I could never do something like that.  I still think my lines would turn out wonky but your tutorial makes it look less impossible at least.  Thanks again!

[Guildenstern]

That's really impressive the (one) time I did tartan I *did* cheat, I basically just faked lines without connecting them, only really making lines where they might be seen, instead of actually doing a bunch of lines.

[Kangaroorex]

That's amazing!  Thank you for sharing!

[Glitterwolf]

Awesome!

[Gadgetman!]

That is just awesome. 

I may have to try this soon...  

 

Also, tanks for tipping me off about the Sibeccai.

(I'll be ordering that one the next time I get something from that site)

 

 

[Geoff Davis]

4 hours ago, Gadgetman! said:

Also, tanks for tipping me off about the Sibeccai.

(I'll be ordering that one the next time I get something from that site)

 

She's one of my favorite minis, mostly because I'm running a D&D game in the Diamond Throne setting from Monte Cook.  She and her lookalikes get a lot of use in my game. 

 

 

The Male Sibeccai Runethane from Iron Wind Metals is also a nice figure.  I've posted one in the show offs.  Male Sibeccai Runethane

 

Geoff

Edited January 20, 2018 by Geoff Davis
Added a link.

[buglips*the*goblin]

This is relevant to my interests, because I've been eyeing Reaper's assorted highlanders.  I think I've figured out how to shade tartan, but hadn't yet gotten around to working out the pattern. 

 

Also, as an aside, I'm in the next maritime province east of you. 

[Geoff Davis]

I've been eying the highlander, too.  I have a couple and what stops before I start is trying to figure out what to do the part which goes up over the shoulder.  The pattern is laterally compressed as a result of the bunching of the cloth, making it hard to figure out how to maintain continuity of the pattern with below their belt.  I'm going to try it at some point.  They are eying me mockingly from my shelf of shame for now.

 

Are you on The Rock?   Do you ever make it to Halcon?

 

Geoff

Edited January 22, 2018 by Geoff Davis