| Capt John Miller | 03 Jan 2016 7:52 p.m. PST |
Greetings all, I am working on the my Perry Late French Ligne. I have a couple of questions to ask and yes, I have tried looking at the color plates in different locations. 1] I have primered my boys in black and I have used Dark Prussian Blue from Vallejo for the coat. The problem is it seems to come out even darker than I would have thought. I have tried using Vallejo Prussian Blue, but that seems to be too light. Do you have any ideas? 2] What color are the canteens the French have? It is slung on the left side of the Fusilier for those figures that have it. DO you have any ideas? As always, many thanks in advance for your help. |
79thPA  | 03 Jan 2016 8:11 p.m. PST |
First thoughts are to either highlight the dark blue with a lighter blue, or to dry brush white over the black primer before you paint the figures. |
| wrgmr1 | 03 Jan 2016 8:43 p.m. PST |
1) take your Prussian blue four drops then add one drop of cream or beige. Mix well and use as a high light.
2) light blue, brown or grey. You can mix them up. JMHO
Thomas |
| rmaker | 03 Jan 2016 10:57 p.m. PST |
The Imperial Army didn't issue canteens, the soldiers had to find their own. |
| von Winterfeldt | 04 Jan 2016 12:04 a.m. PST |
"The Imperial Army didn't issue canteens, the soldiers had to find their own" Wrong – a canteen was issued as battle field findings and contemporary prints show, it was of white metal, however due th heavy wear and tear and rusting a lot had to be replaced by other makeshift canteens. |
| Oliver Schmidt | 04 Jan 2016 2:31 a.m. PST |
On the French regulation canteen of white metal (petit bidon), see here: link This was replaced with glass ones (bouteille clissée) on 26 February 1806: link |
| Timmo uk | 04 Jan 2016 4:51 a.m. PST |
I use a deep royal blue over white undercoat and wash it with black to get a really dark blue with little effort. Blue is an odd colour that absorbs rather than reflects light so unless your highlights are very subtle it can look very false. By washing with black I get some tonal variation but it's pretty subtle. It's easy to lift off the wash from highlight spots when it's still wet to add to the effect. If it is a concern the real coats were a very dark blue, looking near black in some light, although you may or may not want to paint them using such a dark, yet realistic, colour. Many folks paint them a brighter blue by choice. |
| T Corret | 04 Jan 2016 12:30 p.m. PST |
Also, scale effect on small figures tends to darken the colors. Many warship modelers use a lot of white in WW II gray to avoid the models looking black. I tend to use darker colors straight and highlight twice with added white. |
| MDavout | 04 Jan 2016 4:14 p.m. PST |
Thanks for the information on the French Canteen. That's something that always puzzled me. Could not understand why canteens were not issued given their importance. The 1806 regs are interesting as well. While I can understand that a glass bottle is more durable than a tin canteen, the additional weight had to have been a concern. Perhaps that's the real reason why so many soldiers adopted gourds |
| von Winterfeldt | 04 Jan 2016 11:56 p.m. PST |
in case you like not to desaturate a colour like blue, don't add white but ivory |
 deadhead | 05 Jan 2016 3:21 a.m. PST |
Timmo UK, that is a brilliant idea! I am a great fan of washes…..as the liquid makes up for one's inaccuracy with a brush. It does rely on gravity to flow though….now if I painted in a centrifuge…… von W, anything he says I sit up and listen. Ivory? Elephants and Rhinos I know about. But the real colour? Creamish white I guess. I have never been happy with my highlighting of blue. I bought two bottles years ago of the darkest blue in the Citadel range. To one I added about 25% Chaos Balck as the base. The other the highlight. Trust me, it does not work. Saturation…….I understand that in Photography. Fascinating! |
| Widowson | 07 Jan 2016 1:50 p.m. PST |
Be careful when "scaling" French uniform blue. A lot of figures I see photographed on this site look absolutely ridiculous in their medium blue uniforms. Far better to start with the very dark blue, and define the blue with highlights on shoulders, backs, arms. Then another set of lighter highlights at just a few places. |
| jwebster | 07 Jan 2016 2:33 p.m. PST |
"Ivory" usually refers to the Vallejo Model Color 70.918 This is a famous paint among competition painters and is a "must have paint". It separates a lot less than regular whites and having this colour as basic white means that highlights in pure white can be done As von Winterfeldt said, it's also great for lighting colours for highlighting John |
| von Winterfeldt | 08 Jan 2016 9:14 a.m. PST |
it pays of well to watch painting with romain, at least colour theory part 4 – 6 here a link to part 5 YouTube link |
paints brigs for the British fleet.
