So far so good with regard to 2025 and painting, my mojo remains intact and shows no signs of wandering off on vacation again. Painting Scottish Covenantors is fairly quick compared to the ancients I have been doing where there is a lack of uniformity. Mostly its a case of give them a coat of Hodden Grey and pick out a few details and done. The problem is I'm running out of Scot's infantry until Irregular reopen sales of 6mm figures or Ian Kay takes pity on me. Still I have lots of other BCW 6mm to paint so all is well.
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| Hodden Grey...it's grey but what shade exactly? |
So what shade of grey was Hodden Grey. The answer is that isn't the right question! Hodden Grey was a type of cloth rather than an exact shade. It was made by mixing the wool of one dark fleece with wool from about a dozen white ones. Now as white and dark cover a multitude of sins when it comes to sheep the resulting colour would vary from a neutral mid grey through to grey with a brown tinge! which is nice when mixing paint shades as it is very forgiving.
For these I primed white and gave a thin wash of black ink to bring out the detail and a bit of pre-shading. Bases got a coat of Vallejo Khaki as it is a good match for my basing sand and then it was time to slap on a coat (and britches) of grey. This was literally a slap on job as at this stage accuracy doesn't really matter. Dotting in the faces and hands and a dark brown for the muskets, a pale blue for the bonnets and a mix of red brown for hair and the job is almost done. Last pick out some straps and scabbards in a light brown and a few lower legs in a contrasting colour to high light the hose (hoes? long socks). Once that's dry (a matter of a couple of minutes with acrylics) a coat of satin varnish for protection and a wash of Agrax Eathshade. I leave them upside down on the painting sticks balanced between two paint pots to get the ink to pool where shadows would naturally be and then lastly a touch of silver where gun barrels can be seen and a bit of the light blue to ensure the bonnets 'pop'. All done in under an hour if you ignore drying times.
The Irregular figures paint up well and have the advantage of being available in individual strips (or will be as and when they come back on the market).
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| These will be joining Crawford Lindsey's regiment |
The castings have improved a lot over the years from the original dolly peg style figures and are not far behind Baccus now in terms of quality. I emailed Ian Kay about filling the gaps in my project and he has said he hopes to be more organised in about a month's time and to ask again then, which sounds promising. So for now it's on to some Scottish Lancers as the next units.
