"Russian Green paint???" Topic

I need some help with Russian Green paint.

Several paint manufacturers list a color called "Russian Green". Can Russian Green paint be used for Russian Napoleonic infantry as well as Russian WWII AFVs? Or is it only good for one or the other?

Napoleonic Russian green is a long way from WWII Russian olive green.

I'm not going to get drawn into what the exact shades are though, that way lies madness. Wait for the colour pedants to pop up and tell you that their research (taken from one piece of 200 year old paint) is definitive.

Imperial Russia fought in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Soviet Union fought in WWII.

Keeping that much straight would eliminate much of the confusion.

Reported. Politics

You won't be ning when you're sharing a cell with Murphy :)

Bring your clawhammer banjo with you.

I pity the fool who has to share a cell with me. They'll be screaming for the gaolers right away.

Allen

I would want to hear more stories about the NTC. Perhaps we could chip some bits of concrete off the wall and set up some tactical problems?

Very dark green. Succeeding generations apparently described their soldiers as wearing black. Producing lots of uniforms quickly with variable quality control probably led to a green which was less dark, but if you are shading, use a pretty dark colour for the shadows.
For the main colour, it depends a bit on the scale you are painting. Don't overdo the highlights. Foundry do a 'Russian Green' in their Napoleonic range and while I wouldn't accept all their colours as gospel it would probably be as good as any.
Failing that, some companies produce a French dragoon green which might well work. It is probably a bit light than the Foundry Russian Green but likely to be okay.

Reaper Pro Paints has "Elven Green" which is a nice dark green and seems to match my expectations of Russian Green for the Napoleonic era.

I have read "Russian Green" described as black with a greenish tinge.

I would base paint the figs in black, then dry brush on a very dark green (your darkest green mixed with black) over the upper chest, coat tails, and sleeves. Then highlight with your darkest green.

Many painters go with a lighter shade, especially on 15mm and smaller. I generally agree with this idea, in a limited way. But the Russians should look like a black horde--especially from a distance.

The white belting and trousers will help. The rolled greatcoats should be the color of paper grocery bags. With red collars, cuffs, and distinctive shoulder straps, they look great.

Remember also that the 1805 jagers wear a lighter shade of green, but not the light infantry after 1810.

I did what Widowson is describing to a Japanese 1:48th Frank (Hayate) last night trying to mix my own Japanese green. Primed black and lightly coated with diluted Valejo German Camo Dark Green. Was amusing until I added lighter layers ;-).

But would likely work for what you're trying to do.

Don.

Russian wore (quite) dark green. At a distance that would certainly look blackish, but apparently at some later date, they actually wore black. This has caused some confusion, and I've seen some suggestions that they actually wore black dyed cloths, but no, they were dark green.

I believe Soviet tanks were also dark green rather than olive…

Hey, grocery bag is perfect!-)

Most of the actual Nap Russian uniforms I have seen- and I have seen a few up close- were very dark green, bordering on black sometimes. That said there was no absolute color uniformity, since fabrics were bought from different manufacturers and differed slightly. That said one has to take into account the size of painted figs- so it does NOT look like some dark horde from a couple of feet…

What did they use as dyestuff, mortants and textile?

"I believe Soviet tanks were also dark green rather than olive…"

Wasn't there a reference recently talking to an old Soviet WWII tanker who looked at Western sources and said we'd been depicting their tanks too dark?

Looking at the re-enactors within Russia, you'll see quite a variety of greens on the infantry. They don't typically bring tanks, of course.

These are artwork, to be sure, but they give a good indication of the possible range of shades of green on armored vehicles (on the same site, there are lots more trucks and tractors and guns as well):

o5m6.de/RussianArmour.html

o5m6.de/index.html

To me, that's a clue not to be too doctrinaire about Soviet paint colors. The US, UK, and Germany may have had government specs that were followed more or less strictly; in the emergency conditions experienced by the Soviet Union, the consistency of paint colors was probably not a top priority.

Allen

It is most likely that the Russian dark green was from dying wool or linen (flax or hemp) first with Woad :

WOAD – Isatis tinctoria
Woad is one of the most ancient sources of the blue pigment, indican. This is the famous blue dye of the ancient Britons and was used to make green by over dying with weld. They also used the pigment to paint their faces blue, the better to frighten Roman conquerors.
The amount of indican in woad plants is woefully small compared with that in indigo, however, indigo is not reliably cold hardy and woad is. If you are really determined to be authentic and grow your own source of indican, plant woad. It is a member of the mustard family and is related to cabbage and broccoli. Woad grown in fertile soil will contain much more pigment than plants that barely get by. You should have no trouble getting seed from companies that specialize in herbs. Sow the seed where it is to grow in fall or early spring, Woad is also biennial and will produce a flat rosette of leaves the first season and a bloom spike the second.

EXTRACTING THE DYE – Harvest leaves all summer long, it takes two pounds of woad leaves to dye only four ounces of wool. Chop the leaves and cram them into a canning jar then pour almost boiling water over them until the jar overflows, cap the jar, excluding as much air as possible. After an hour remove the leaves and squeeze them dry. The indican will have been converted into indoxyl and the water will look brownish with a metallic sheen. This liquid can be used to dye small amounts of wool or silk. However, the results will be unsatisfactory, usually a pale blue or grayish blue and not particularly light fast.
If you want to dye large quantities of fiber a deep rich blue, use the same method as that used by Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. Purchase ready to use indigo dye. This dye is made by dissolving dried indican in sulfuric acid and adding ground limestone to neutralize it. The fact is that the medieval dyers used essentially the same method. If anyone ever questions the authenticity of your woad-dyed textiles, just show them the jar of indoxyl and point out the plants in the garden.
During medieval times, the production of woad dye and dying were two separate occupations. Dye production was a major industry and thousands of tons of dye were made annually. People did not make their own dye but purchased it from professionals who spent their entire lives learning the secrets of fermenting woad and extracting the pigment. Exploration in the far east revealed the existence of indigo, a plant that contains ten times as much pigment as woad. Eventually, between imports from the far east and colonies in the new world, the European woad industry collapsed. Indigo dye was produced in South Carolina until the time of the Civil War.

and then with weld:

WELD – Reseda luteola
Dyer's mignonette or weld produces an outstanding primary yellow on all protein fibers and cotton. This yellow is clear and intense, the yellow that all other yellows are judged against. The substance responsible for producing this color is luteolin and is present in all the green parts of the plant. Compared to other plant sources for yellow available to the home dyer, weld is very concentrated. Six or seven weld rosettes or two weld plants in bloom will dye a pound of wool an intense primary yellow color.

Weld is best grown from seed. Either start the seed indoors about six to eight weeks before the last frost or sow the seed directly where it will be grown in late summer or early spring. This plant prefers a sweet soil, but will grow in acidic soils as well. If allowed to flower and set seed, it will produce hundreds of volunteer plants in the spring. These can be weeded out where ever they are unwelcome and dried for use as dye later. Weld is a hardy biennial plant that produces attractive rosettes of slightly crinkled long and slender leaves the first season and long bloom spikes the second.
USING WELD IN THE DYE POT – Weld can be used fresh or dried with equal success. If you are only dying a small quantity of fiber, simply pick a few leaves from each plant, the same way you would harvest leaf lettuce. Chop the plant material and simmer for an hour to extract the pigment. Strain out the leaves and add your mordant and a small quantity of chalk or washing soda to the dye bath then the wet fiber or yarn. Simmer the fiber for an hour, stirring frequently. Luteolin is one of the few plant pigments that will settle out of solution after time so it is importan to stir often.
Alum will give the best yellow but other mordants can be used to get gold, olive, and green. Remember to be very careful when using any mordant other than alum, especially chromium dioxide (chrome), as they are all toxic to some degree. Alum is very safe and will not harm your fibers.
The famous medieval colors, Saxon green and Lincoln green, were produced by over-dying weld yellow with woad blue. If you are interested in reproducing these colors today, it is very easy to do using indigo. Anyone interested in producing authentic colors for living history pageants will want to give this a try. link

The order of dyeing can be different. The yellow dyestuff might use a mordant (a chemical salt to attach to the fibre and the dyestuff attaches to the chemical salt to make a fast colour). The yellow colors are likely to fade or be bleached out to leave a darker colour, which might approach the fast blue colour. (cf link

If different mordants were used you would get different green colors: "With an alum mordant, weld makes lightfast lemon yellow on wool and silk, with copper it makes greenish yellow, with iron it makes olive. Combined with woad, weld makes green (usually the woad is done first); this is called Lincoln Green and was the color of the clothing of Robin Hood's men. It is also the basis of Saxon green, which is weld over Saxon blue (a light blue created by indigo dye treated with sulphuric acid [oil of vitriol]).http://www.alchemy-works.com/reseda_luteola.html Most of the literature seems to have these combinations giving a Kelly Green or Kendal Green (grass green?) colors, which is different from the dark green infantry color.

Another approach might be to use some of the "sader" mordants to do the yellow colors and then combine it with the Woad blue colors. Copper or iron mortants give khaki and blacker colors to yellow just by themselves. I'm suspecting that they used a combination of woad as a first dyeing and then iron-mordant weld bath as the second. This would give a dark green that could fade towards a black.

Question: does anyone know how the goverment purchasing agents specified the colour or the method of dyeing?

haha.. this is the kind of discussion that I speak of with friends that have little understanding of wargamers or wargaming, when I point out how anal we can be lol.

But seriously.. I would find a picture on the net of some Russians that you think look good, then get a paint that best meets that colour.

Remember that the smaller the scale the brighter you should go (within reason).

My 5c

TW

Probably the best site for Soviet GPW armour colours in english on the web

link

These were taken at a reenactment in Priozersk in the Kareilan isthmus (Leningradskaya Oblast) a handful of weeks back. You can see the different shades on the truck, helmets and ammo can.

picture

picture

That's my friend Rob with the DP ammo tin. While there is variation e.g. between the SSh35 and SSh39/40 helmets there are standards. The SSh35s are one shade the SSh39/40s another.

"Probably the best site for Soviet GPW armour colours in english on the web"

Pity the links there are dead; those would have been interesting.

Allen

I prefer to think of soviet green as somewhere between brown and black ;)

imho, you can't really go wrong..

He's after Nap green though.. unless I've read the OP incorrectly….

Try looking around this place livinghistory.ru