"Red soil in Vietnam" Topic

Im looking for good pale red/orange/beige color for my Vietnamese terrain. I saw Ceramcoat made a color called Georgia Clay and having lived in Georgia years ago, the title sounded about right. I ordered a bottle and I'm glad it was cheap. Ceramcoat, if you're reading this, I suggest you change the name of that paint to "Ridiculously Too Red Martian Soil".

I've also looked at various terracotta paints, which all seem too too orange. What paint have you used or did you end up in your paint lab concocting your own mixture (something I'd rather avoid)?

Im experimenting with a few of the Valejjo pigments which can be mixed with water im going to try for a wash that may just hint at right look for ground cover and weathering of the vehicles but im going to go real easy and light to start and see if it can be done…..

Go to Michael's get their cheapo acrylic terracotta .79 cents it is lighter than what you have it sounds like. These paints are good enough especially if you are painting terrain and dry brushing mud. That's all I use.

Cheers

I dunno, at least at Khe Sanh:

link
vietvet.org/brushpic.htm

and Wikipedia with modern picture. Granted Khe Sahn and granted do not know if the shade your talking about is 'beyond' red. :-)

I've never been to Vietnam, but the laterite I've seen in India has been of a variety of rusty reds, including ridiculously too red martian sand, honestly. (Not that I've seen the ceramcoat paint.)

Farther south, Vietnam has normal, loamy brown soil, but parts are "Georgia red clay", which is a beige, rusty pale orange. I decided that was more interesting than brown. My wife's Vietnamese, but quizzing her only produced, "It's ummm, red"

When I got to my outfit I was wearing brand new jungle fatigues. Everybody else seemed to have a different color uniform. I honestly thought I'd get fatigues with a reddish cast to them. FNGs! Within a month I fit in. 3 Corp, Binh Duong province.

My wife's from what would've been III Corps; Long Khanh (which is just to the east of Binh Duong), hence my interest in the more southerly part of Vietnam. Not sure why I find the red clay appealing, she insists the soil where she grew up was brown just like in the US

I use Burnt Sienna craft paints for Vietnamese red soil, from a couple makers. I've also seen pictures where it is definitely a proper red colour.

The first post in this thread on my blog has some examples for my 3mm Vietnam project:
link

Just down from it is a link to a file I put together of images of Vietnam, which I use for my painting.

I have seen photos of places in Vietnam where the soil is quite shockingly red, but for whatever reason (probably watching Vietnam every night on the news on a 60s color tv), it just doesn't sit well with my mental picture of Vietnam.

Me as well.

Hawaiian soil reminded me of the red-orange Vietnamese ground I've seen.

Underneath trees and forests, it's probably more likely to be a dark brown however, but doesn't always have to be. We have places here where the topsoil is brown, but underneath that, it is the red-orange clay too.

Yup, a delta lowland region probably would have darker, loamier soil.
"In northern Vietnam the heavy monsoonal rains wash away rich humus from the highlands, leaving slow-dissolving alumina and iron oxides that give the soil its characteristic reddish colour." Encyclopedia Britannica Alluvial soils account for about one-fourth of the land in the south and are concentrated in the Mekong River delta, as are peat and muck soils. Gray podzolic soils are found in parts of the central highlands and in old terraces along the Mekong River, while regurs (rich black loams) and lateritic soils occur in both the central highlands and the terrace zone. Along the coast of central Vietnam are regosols (soft, undeveloped soils) and noncalcic brown soils.
link

I promised to do this project more as a diorama for my wife, who's quite interested in the war, as she was born 10 years after it was over, but being a wargamer, I had an ulterior motive. I figured it was a great way to gain a wife-sanctioned addition to my already too numerous wargames interests.

Another issue that my wife has taken exception to is my use of palm trees. She insists that she can't remember seeing a single one within quite a distance of the town she grew up in. After I joined the Army at 18, I was sent to Thailand for 18 months, so I know palm trees don't grow in the jungle. That's all diceduous. But along rivers and near the coast, my mind says "If it's Vietnam, it has palm trees."

@ whoa mohamed: If you're willing, please let me know how you get on and what mixture you finally settle on. Thanks!!

I used to use an old GW colour, Swamp Brown, from aeons ago. I believe it was from the range done by coat d'arms, I think it became something like vermin fur or somesuch name. It seemed to look reasonable as a reddish mud colour without being too red.

The actual color of Ultisol (red clay) will differ depending upon the impurities. The actual clay in the mix is gray and white. The color comes from impurities. In Georgia, for example, it comes from feldspar and iron. I've seen really red colored clay in Connecticut. It seems to get more red when it is wet so diffraction is an issue.

As for getting it right – there probably are threshold colors. I am not familiar with the paint you picked up but you can probably tone it down by adding brown. It shouldn't look too saucy. You will probably want to use dry brushing with several shades in order to get it to look the most natural.

Good luck and share photos of your work if you can!

@ferd45231: Drop me an email. I've got a question about that uniform. Thanks. frnqtr at yahoo dot com

I finally settled on an undercoat of the electric red and then over-painted with burnt umber, and finally over-painted the whole thing with terracotta. Seems to give a richer, duskier orange, leaning toward red. Looks good anyway.

If I've figured out Photobucket correctly, this should be a photo of my finished "experimental" tile:

I've yet to put on any trees, as I'm still mulling over whether to make them movable or a permanent part of the tile. Mobile makes storing the terrain a breeze (stacked up in copy paper boxes), but I feel it tends to look cheezier than permanent trees on each tile. Of course permanent makes storage a nightmare. Hmm…. Thoughts?

(I see I DID figure out Photobucket correctly)