Rob's Waterloo 'dogfight double' *DNF*

[rob_van_riel]

A much longer time ago than I care to think about, I was really into Napoleonic figures, and at the time, there were two ranges of kits getting serious attention from me: the Airfix Collector's Series, and the whole Historex range. Airfix was cheap, available just about anywhere, and the animation of the figures was great, but subjects were limited, and detail was a bit coarse. Historex was just the opposite; exquisite detail, anything you can possibly imagine (as long as it's French), but expensive, hard to find, and rather stiff. To this day I can't decide which of the two I like best. In any case, the result is that there are about 50 of the Airfix figures still in my display case, aged anything between 40 and 4.

The pair I'll be working on here are old and somewhat abused blisterings (can't call it boxings..) of the 42nd Highlanders (right), and the French line infantry (left). The sprues were cut up something like 30 years ago, and they've been languishing ever since. One set of arms for the Highlander has gone missing during that time, but that's OK, the pair I planned to use is still there, and otherwise the spares box would have supplied them.



The really messed up bases in the middle have seen decades of service as paint mixing dishes, and are close to solidly filled with dried up remains. Their job has largely been taken up by other tools now, and I figured they were due for an honourable retirement at the feet of these two chaps. Some surface damage will need to be fixed, but that is a trivial matter.

[Stuart]

Wow that's really interesting Rob - those figures look really nice - looking forward to seeing them come together!

Do you have a tin of Tartan paint?

[rob_van_riel]

Do you have a tin of Tartan paint?

Nope, but I do have (access to) a printer, and some fairly detailed images of the Black Watch tartan. I think I can do a fairly good job on this; tartans may be a bit dazzling to the eye, but once you get over that you can usually spot a fairly simple pattern in them. I'm going to try to digitally emulate what the weaver would have done in thread, that is, warp and weft at 50% opaquity levels, and let the software take it from there.

[Stuart]

Do you have a tin of Tartan paint?

Nope, but I do have (access to) a printer, and some fairly detailed images of the Black Watch tartan. I think I can do a fairly good job on this; tartans may be a bit dazzling to the eye, but once you get over that you can usually spot a fairly simple pattern in them. I'm going to try to digitally emulate what the weaver would have done in thread, that is, warp and weft at 50% opaquity levels, and let the software take it from there.

So you're going to make a Tartan Decal? Great Idea -can't wait to see how it comes out!

[rob_van_riel]

So you're going to make a Tartan Decal? Great Idea -can't wait to see how it comes out!

That's the plan. I'm fairly certain I can get it to print, the bigger question is if I can get it worked into the folds of the kilt in a realistic looking way. This may involve cutting wedges out of the decal, and frankly scares the daylights out of me. If any show stopping errors occurs, this is where it will be.

[rob_van_riel]

I'm going to try to digitally emulate what the weaver would have done in thread, that is, warp and weft at 50% opaquity levels, and let the software take it from there.

Using somewhat higher opaquity levels, but I think the technique is valid.



Clearly, this still has a very long way to go before it resembles the Black Watch pattern, but that's for sometime after friday.

[Stuart]

That's a really interesting technique Rob - I think it'll look super.

I'mm sure you'll be able to do it!

[Purplethistle]

This is an area that I have some experience. If you look closely, the stripes are made up of diagonal lines, mostly composed of two colours, but becoming a solid single colour where warp and weft overlap

[Clashcityrocker]

Interesting. I'll be watching this.

Nigel

[rob_van_riel]

This is an area that I have some experience. If you look closely, the stripes are made up of diagonal lines, mostly composed of two colours, but becoming a solid single colour where warp and weft overlap

Yup, that's how a weaver blends colours. However, after scaling down by a factor 30, I think you'll have to look closely to even see the pattern, so I don't think the actual diagonal lines will be missed. I'm also a bit concerned about the printer's ability to draw the diagonals at that scale; even high resolution machines can only go so far. Letting the machine do it's own dithering on a composite colour seems the safer bet.

That expertise you mention, would that be weaving or tartans? Given the rather subtle colour variations, I think my own printer might be a bit outclassed by the problem, and I'm considereing using a professional printing service for this decal. If that happens, I might decide to have large areas of different tartans printed up, which would require good reference pics similar to the one you just posted (thanks for that)...

[nashorn]

Rob, thats a great idea, i really hope you manage it,
i am watching this with great interest.

Rich.

[Purplethistle]

This is an area that I have some experience. If you look closely, the stripes are made up of diagonal lines, mostly composed of two colours, but becoming a solid single colour where warp and weft overlap

That expertise you mention, would that be weaving or tartans? Given the rather subtle colour variations, I think my own printer might be a bit outclassed by the problem, and I'm considereing using a professional printing service for this decal. If that happens, I might decide to have large areas of different tartans printed up, which would require good reference pics similar to the one you just posted (thanks for that)...

I also used to make a lot of 54mm and Historex figures, mainly for converting to make Jacobite Rising dioramas. The 54mm 1776 British Grenadier was fairly easily converted to a 1745 Hanoverian.
For the clansmens tartans I would hand paint a base coat of the predominant colour, say dark green. Then i would apply the vertical lines, say med black, med blue, thin black, med blue, med black in a cluster, leave an equal space of the base colour, then repeat. Once that is done, repeat the process for the horizontal lines. To give the impression of the diagonal lines, hand draw them with a VERY fine black or blue pen (except for where lines of the same colour intersect, there you add a dab of that colour, slightly lightened with a small amount of white. A shaped matchstick end of the right size was my preferred applicator
More recently I have been using the computer to make tartan decals for aircraft of the US Navy Squadron VA-46 Clansmen. Their a/c were originally hand painted, but in the '60s the 3M Corporation made up stick -on transfers of a stylised version of the tartan. This had a red background and black or blue stripes, becoming green squares where the lines intersected.(the black was to represent alternate red/green diagonals seen from a distance)
VA-46 had several versions of tartan on their aircraft, usually based on the family tartan of whoever was C.O. at the time.

[Purplethistle]

Link to a website with deails of the VA-46 Tartan, It might help with how you make up your Black Watch Tartan.

http://www.scottishtartans.org/va-46.htm;

[rob_van_riel]

Made a start on the main assemblies. Predictably, every seam will need filler and filing. The highlander also needed work on the position of his legs; OOB the size of the step he's trying to take would be ridiculous, not to mention inconsistent with the position of his feet, and he would be tilted significantly to the right and rear. It's almost as if they couldn't make up their minds whether to have him march or charge, and ended up with legs somewhere inbetween.



The kilt is also in two parts, but these have to be assembled in place around the legs, so that wasn't possible yet. I suspect this is going to cause trouble later on, as this means I'll have to build two badly fitting parts around painted up legs.

[Stuart]

Good start Rob - interesting what you said about the legs - Perhaps they modelled him drunk?

But what we all want to is - what does a scotsman wear under his kilt?