"Uniform Colours - Paint Colours - I'm confused" Topic

Like so many, I'm being tempted to return to playing with little toy soldier, brightly coloured little toy solders. And that is my issue. There are lots of sources for pictures of period soldiers, even in colour. My problem is that as a non-artist I haven't a clue as to exactly what shade of yellow a uniform's facing have vs what paint colour to use. Is that officer wearing crimson lace, or is it pig's belly pink or maybe Madonna hot pink? Aaaarrrrgh.

Are there sources that put names to the uniform colours? Is there a way to connect that with a paint colour, especially given that there are so many different paint manufacturers. Don't mean to be too fanatical about it, but would like to figure it out before painting any figures.

There is alot of variation to dyes and then there are other factors such as lighting, wear/tear and scale. I look and read thru the guides available and go for my own interpretation (i.e Prussian blue, indigo blue and midnight blue all end up being whatever dark blue paint I prefer). Its pretty much that easy.

Learning to perform this colour translation is part of the art of miniature painting -- there's no one way to do it. There's no single right answer as to how to portray, say, the red coats of British infantry in the Peninsula. Some people go for dark shades, some people like it nice and bright, some people will pick muted colours… personally I tend to go for brighter more cartooney colours with lots of 'pop' and dark shadows.

How you do it is part of what is your painting style.

To start with, you can search for guides to painting the figures you're interested in. Often here are discussions here where people will post recipes to use as starting points, but you can then employ your own variations. There's no right answer; even when representing real uniforms, the search is for something which is appropriate and looks right given the limitations -- and opportunities -- of the medium.

Miniature painting is not just about replicating reality, it's also about interpreting it.

I look at a uniform plate, or what others have done and get as close as I can, no one can tell if it's right or not.

It is all down to scale effect. If I had a tin of AP506 (or a code something like that, I have long forgotten) I could paint a 1;700 HMS Hood in the genuine colours of May 1941……and it would look far too dark.

Scale effect is still significant in 1;56 (28mm)…..lighten slightly, edge enhancement in even lighter shades, highlighting exaggerated………

Look through the gallery and see what the experts achieve.

But you are talking about traditional "toy" soldiers? Surely they have to be bright and glossy, no shading and very simplistic faces.

"Miniature painting is not just about replicating reality, it's also about interpreting it."
It's even worse, I am afraid: it's about replicating our personal prejudices about the armies (;-)). I remember having read somewhere about the diary of a young Prussian officer in the army of Frederic the Great (uniform: dark blue coat, white trousers, black boots). After a night of rain he complained that his uniform now was sky blue all over. The night before Waterloo also was very wet and lots of soldiers had to sleep in the mud. I believe it was Captain Mercer (Royal Horse Artillery) who complained he even did not recognize himself, let alone his fellow soldiers.
What we do is creating movies, not reality. Of course we want to have our movies not to be Hollywood-like, but nice and colourful (which was te reason for you, and perhaps all of us, to stárt this hobby. Fortunately some people love to put information on Internet, in that way creating great examples we use for our own little tin persons (I almost wrote "men", which would not be right ;-)). If, for instance, you are interested in Napoleonic uniforms in 1815 (The Hundred Days/Waterloo), there is a real sea of pictures of all nationalities at
centjours.mont-saint-jean.com/. But for any period there is much information, and there are even sites (blogs ?) where people mention – for instance – the number of Vallejo paints they have used.
Hopefully this helps.

akmatov, do you have any version of Photoshop available to you?

You can use something like this site to help match manufacturers colours to source material.

encycolorpedia.com

If you can afford them, Foundry have some rather nice paint sets for Napoleonics:

link

Many people will argue about "authenticity" but they do make the job of choosing the "right" colour a tad simpler.