Thursday 15 May 2014

One tartan to rule them all?

So I was about to start painting the highlanders that I've got ready for Whiskey Priest's Oldhammer challenge, when suddenly I was paralysed with angst and self-doubt.

Not so much an existentialist crisis as an example of the kind of annoying niggles that crop up everytime I need to make a big painting decision. And the big question causing all the hesitation was this:
Should I paint the kilts of the clansmen all in one tartan, or should I go for a load of different tartans?


An incident in the rebellion of 1746, by David Morier - note the highlanders are wearing several different tartans.

If I was an historic gamer, there might be a somewhat definitive answer to that: if I was wargaming the Jacobite uprising, say, the evidence would point to the fact that the warriors wore a whole gaggle of tartans. Certainly the idea of everyone wearing a common "clan tartan" is a much later development, and in terms of battle dress has more to do with the raising of the Highland Regiments in the 18th century, when each regiment was dressed in a uniform tartan. It's only really with the highly dubious claims of Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842 (largely a historical fabrication - FABRICation, geddit? eh? HAHAHAHAHA oh forget it) that we derive the idea that there was such a thing as historic tartans associated with particular clans, taken up by the Highland Society of London... and kiltmakers have been trading on that ever since. So it's kind of a 19th century fantasy of how Scottish highlanders used to dress. But then, what we're wargaming here is fantasy.

The Albion clansman designed for McDeath, all decked out in their highland dress, inhabit a romantic dream, born of Sir Walter Scott's "Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,/ Land of the mountain and the flood", but in the hands of the Games Workshop designers it's a dream cut through with 1980s British cynicism... competitors at the Highland games become rival football hooligans armed with broken bottles facing off over the playing field. (Incidentally, the Warlord Games "arrant scum" selection of beer swilling highlanders captures this mixture of romance and hooliganism quite nicely.) High fantasy with a vein of snide humour.

Such is the nature of fantasy - the past as it is imagined, and as we use it to tell stories about the present, not than the past as it was lived. So ultimately, the question is which fantasy I want to depict when I come to paint these wee fellows: the fiercely independent highlander banding together with his fellows, or the loyal men tied to kin and territory through unbreakable bonds of blood.

9 comments:

  1. I'm always up for a challenge but painting tartan gets soul destroying very quickly. Having different tartans might actually make it more bearable I suppose.

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    1. Well I did the tartan on a kilt for my Fimir musician, and didn't find it too bad... but then I deliberately chose a simple to apply colour scheme, if I have to mix it up then I will quickly run out of "simple" tartans!

      I'll see how I feel about it after a while, but I daresay it's nowhere near as soul destroying as painting gold roundels on daleks!

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  2. I'm doing simple color combos for mine, with the nobles getting more complex tartan designs the more important they are. That way, I don't go mad painting, but the colors tie troops together. A few guys and a noble or two, and you have a force, and no reason at all why different clans wouldn't work together to achieve a goal.
    Then again, I'm doing my Albion project right along w my Macbeth Scots for SAGA, so I'll be up to my elbows in tartans for a while!

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    1. That sounds like a reasonable kind of plan. Part of the problem is, it's really hard to envisage, and I don't want to go through all the hassle of painting the tartans and then be like "well that's a bit rubbish really!"... hence being paralyzed by the decision before I even start.

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  3. I think I'd approach it with a view to having some kind of unifying colour scheme for each clan. You could assume that a particular set of colour dyes are available in each island/clan home and that it is that that (that's a lot of that's) decides the colours of the clansmens kilts. You can then use a group of 4 colours and mix these up within your clansmen. As long as you use 3 colours (a cheque of two colours with a central pin stripe/cross of a third) from the clan palette you can batch paint a small group with each combination giving you a variety of tartans with a unifying colours scheme. This'll give you a the right mix of highland warrior and football hooligan. For the other clan/team just decide on another set of 4 colours! Does all that make sense?

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    1. Definitely makes sense. Yes, this works as a plan. Thanks a lot!

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    2. Might I also point you in the direction of this blog to view a great version of tartan http://auldearn1645.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/farquharson-of-monaltries-regiment.html

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    3. Ooof, that's some neat tartan. Actually, it looks truly amazing on a model by model basis, but has maybe reinforced my new-found feeling that there needs to be some colour uniformity... they have that with the blue bonnets, of course.

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