From the painting desk #69 – A Scot and a Spaniard
March 1, 2020Two more painted miniatures join the populace of Tyburn Island, both on the more lawful side of things. First up is a Scottish sailor from Galloping Major. As part of my new year’s plans to push myself a bit more in terms of painting technique, I decided to try my hand at painting tartan. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a strong dislike to freehand painting, which I’m consciously trying to get over. Tartan seemed like a good thing to try.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
Some tutorials, some painting, some repainting, some trial and some error later I was surprised to have something I’m quite proud of! It looks like a tartan pattern to me and that’s what I was going for, so I’ll put this in the success column. Overall this was another fun mini to paint. Galloping Major miniatures are clean and pretty bulky, which makes them very painter friendly. I have a full set of 18th century sailors and I’m looking forward to painting up some more of them.
Click for a larger version
Click for a larger version
The second model I painted was a printed one from a file by 3DBreed Miniatures. A freebie from their 1775 Join or Die Kickstarter (which I backed), it’s a rendition of Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish military leader from the latter half of the 18th century. The print came out wonderfully on my Photon, and I’m happy with the paintjob as well. I went with quite bright and clean colours – he’ll be a wonderful officer, gentleman or a rich merchant captain. I have a bunch of lovely STL files from the Kickstarter, and I’m looking forward to printing more of them!
As usual, I feel like I’m struggling terribly with my photography. Not sure if I’m lighting up my minis too harshly, showing them in too large close-ups or what, but in the photos they look like they’ve been painted with fingerpaints. Le sigh.
Dawn of the Lead 
Well, to me the minis, painting, tartan and picture look fine! Well done! 🙂
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Thanks John! Appreciate it 🙂
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Great job on the freehand tartan!
I think the issue with photography and miniatures is that the camera shows everything at a much higher resolution than our eyes perceive the small object. I hate the way any of my models look after I take pictures. In person, I’m much happier with them.
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Thanks Eric! Yeah, you’d think after 10+ years of blogging I’d be used to the whole photography thing, but every now and then I get these “arggh everything is terrible” moments. Luckily they pass!
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I have one of those moments with every photo I take of my painting!
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OMG you don’t like freehand so you THROW yourself in the deep end and paint tartan!!!! You’ve done an amazing job. You’re like some sort of anti-freehand-hero now hehe. Both models look great.
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Hahah, thanks IRO! Life’s too short, better spend it learning something new I guess 😀
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Very true. Today I learnt not to put a knife in the toaster… jokes
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All looking good, the tartan looks amazing – I’m very impressed!
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Cheers Wudugast! All this lovely feedback has convinced me to paint some more lads in kilts!
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Very sensible – it’s the best way to dress!
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Superb mate – so impressed with the tartan!
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Thanks Alex! I’m glad I gave it a shot, that’s another thing off the bucket list.
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Ok, the tartan is amazing. Secondly, the photos are fine – what is your process? Minis always show much more details blown up!
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Thanks Mark! I’m currently trying to sort out a solid photo process. I’ve been experimenting with different setups, and I’m currently using a “DSLR-lite” style camera. I did havea good setup some time ago, and then proceeded to forget how I pulled it off 😀
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You’ve every right to be proud of that tartan, it looks fantastic!
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Thanks Andy, so nice to hear that 🙂
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Lovely work on the pair of these, and especially (as you’d well know) amaziong work on the Tartan!
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Thanks Azazel! It was a labour of love and something I’ve wanted to try for ages, I’m happy with how it turned out.
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