"Spring & Autumn Chinese painting schemes needed" Topic

Hi Guys,

I have just bought my first DBA army, the 15mm Western Chou and Spring & Autumn Chinese (1100 – 701BC)set from Essex minis. It was a total impulse buy as it was going cheap in the local gaming shop and seemed a good deal. Only thing is, I have no idea of any colour schemes….

Right now, an emerald green scheme seems to be calling me for these guys but I have no idea about the period, or whether it would be an accurate colour etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Cheers Guys,

Ace

First of all congratulations on your purchase and I wish you all success with your army.

There is little visual evidence from this time – see Osprey Men At Arms 218 " Ancient Chinese Armies 1500-200 BC" that has a some pictures from your period.

Note that most "armour" of the Chou was made from moulded leather

There is nothing stopping you from using emerald green but Chinese warriors would prefer much more lucky colours primarily reds. They would want to stand out and green would blend . You could use green for unarmoured warriors and tunics etc. A good combo might be a dark armour black/dark brown with green under clothing.

But after all its your army so do what you like as again there is little evidence to contradict you.

Note that most "armour" of the Chou was made from moulded leather

That's interesting! Has much archaeological evidence been found? I would have expected lamellae like those of the Qin, although perhaps in leather, and possibly lacquered.

Hi Skeptic

You are correct I should not have used the word "most" It would be clearer to say that a feature of the Chou was the use of moulded leather, The Chou would have used lammelar armour like the Shang and again the use of leather pieces sewn on to a fabric backing was common.

The documentary source is a book called "Chou Li" or Rituals of Chou that describes how the leather is used. I have not seen a copy myself but it is cited in texts .

This period was a lot more primitive then the later Chin which was at least 500 years later. the Chou were around 800 BC and their Bronze casting was good the use of iron is thought to have come in around 500 BC.

Thank you very much Mapleleaf and Skeptic!

I have opted for green tunics but as Mapleleaf suggested, I like the idea of dark lacquered armour and also of painting lighter leather patches against a dark background.

I read somewhere online that spearshafts etc were often lacquered red or black so I'm opting for red here, but if it sings out too much against the green then I'll settle for some more neutral colours as aesthetics dictate! As far as the metalwork goes, I'll paint the helmets bronze, but I'm not sure about the spear tips and blades. Would they be bronze too?

Mapleleaf, I was looking for that Osprey in Birmingham City Centre yesterday and had absolutely no luck finding it in any of the book shops! Oh well, I still managed to pick up an Elite series guide to Indian and Pakistani Special Forces… Off topic I know, but hey…

Thank you Ace,

Spear tips and blades would be bronze as this predates iron.

Re Ospreys there is hope yet as I know Birmingham has a good library system. Osprey put out a "compendium book" on Chinese Armies. It is called " Soldiers of the Dragon: Chinese Armies 1500 BC – AD 1840" by C J Peers ,
ISBN 10, 1 84603 098 6 It is from the 5 individual Osprey volumes and is a good book if you are getting into Chinese armies

Amazon UK has used.copies from L 4.50 ( pounds)

I remember reading somewhere (possibly one of the Osprey books) that black and red lacquers were used to cover leather armour, and I think blue lacquer became available from 400BC onwards. That hasn't stopped me painting my Spring and Autumns all the colours under the sun though, for convenience purposes (unit ID etc). Don't know about clothing colours.