This is getting to be an interesting thread! First, Paulo, when you speak of a Sgt Major 1st Foot Scots Fusilier Guards - Crimea, are you referring to the first battalion of the 3rd foot guards, the Scots Fusilier Guards, or the 1st regiment of foot, who in the seventies became the Royal Scots Regiment. Unfortunately, both served both at the Alma and Inkerman, but I assume that you mean the Scots Guards.
At that time, all guards R.S.M.s wore four stripes, as you note, on both sleeves. The stripes were gold on a blue backing, but were sown on separately so that a sliver of the red sleeve showed between them
As for colours, I don't know the Vallejo colours, but you could probably make life easy for yourself by getting the six-bottle Andrea red set. that way you can control the final brightness very precisely, and if you want even brighter scarlet highlights, add a tiny drop of yellow. Check them against Einion's useful colour guide.
Einion! I think that the "purplish brown" was something like puce. I'm not sure whether you were objecting to the colour or how it was described!
I completely agree, of course, that senior NCO's had scarlet coats like officers, but the dye was very different. Madder comes from the root of the madder plant (surprise!), while both the officers' scarlet coats and the crimson of their sashes, at that time, were made from the ground up corpses of tiny cochineal insects, which was more expensive. Later in the century, the madder dye was phased out and cochineal used universally.
I really look forward to seeing the finished figure!
