Jemima Fawr | 14 Mar 2016 5:43 a.m. PST |
I've recently been trying to build up my Austrian Napoleonic collection. These chaps have mostly lain unloved and unpainted in a drawer for the last 18 years, but have finally gone under the brush: Chaveuxleger Regiment 6 'Rosenberg'. This was one of the white-coated Chevauxlegers regiments and as such, were virtually indistinguishable from Dragoons (Chevauxlegers used light cavalry horse harnesses).
Grenze Infantry Regiment 9 'Peterwardeiner'. This regiment was still wearing white coats in 1809 and had not switched over to dark brown.
Hussar Regiment 10 'Stipsicz'.
Infantry Regiment 46 'Chasteler'.
Hungarian Insurrection Infantry.
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Extra Crispy | 14 Mar 2016 6:30 a.m. PST |
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John de Terre Neuve | 14 Mar 2016 7:35 a.m. PST |
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Jemima Fawr | 14 Mar 2016 8:23 a.m. PST |
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von Winterfeldt | 15 Mar 2016 4:54 a.m. PST |
very nice looking Austrians and Hungarians |
VonBlucher | 15 Mar 2016 8:46 a.m. PST |
RMD, They look great, I'm in the same boat as you plenty of AB early Prussians and French purchased over 20 years ago begging to be painted. |
Jemima Fawr | 15 Mar 2016 12:03 p.m. PST |
Oh, you've gone and reminded me about THAT unpainted collection now VB! And I was having SUCH a good day… ;) |
baxterj | 15 Mar 2016 1:24 p.m. PST |
Great work Mark, esp like the Hussars |
MDavout | 17 Mar 2016 12:50 p.m. PST |
Superb work! Congratulations. I have an Austrian army that I am in the process of painting. I've had alot of problems coming up with a solution to distinguish the white belting from the white uniform coat. Your solution looks excellent. Could you share with us how you accomplished it. Rob |
Jemima Fawr | 17 Mar 2016 1:54 p.m. PST |
Cheers! Nothing much to it, to be honest. I start with a black undercoat, though all the areas to be white get an all-over coat of light grey (I use Humbrol 64). I then block in the white bits with a size 0 brush. For some reason I tend to start with the belts, then work out from there, filling in the visible bits of uniform and leaving grey in the undercuts and creases of the arms and legs, as well as a grey line down the front-seam of the coat. At this stage, the white, being fairly translucent, still looks quite grey. So I then give the belts, sleeves, legs, belly and coat-tails a highlight with white, thus intensifying the white on the raised areas. |
Jemima Fawr | 17 Mar 2016 2:00 p.m. PST |
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LeonAdler | 17 Mar 2016 2:23 p.m. PST |
Lovely figures given a really nice paint job :) L |
MDavout | 21 Mar 2016 1:58 p.m. PST |
Thanks for the insight. Love the effect. I am going to try that technique on my next Austrian Regiment. Thanks again, Rob |
1968billsfan | 23 Mar 2016 12:30 p.m. PST |
Very nice figures and painting- especially the frogging on the Hungarians ! I can not paint to that level of detail but go after big units and "wargame" grade. I just prime in a thinned down Rustolium flat grey metal priming paint, which may save a step. There is no problem in painting black over it in one coat. When I prime in black, I have trouble picking up all the details of the metal surface to figure out what is where without some drybrushing. Also, I use a vanilla, dove gray, or sand colour (craft store paints) for the cloth of the uniform. There would be variations, even within a unit. These are white with a little yellow, grey or cream colour in them, and then I use a purer white for crossbelts. Cloth was wool or linen and was bleached white but still retained some colour. Belts were a different stronger thicker weave of cotton or linen and were often rubbed with white pipeclay to be whitened, hence the different shade. The grey undercoat does stay in the creases, but I also lightly "paint" with very thin indian ink/floor wax in lots of water over the white parts to get more definition of the white areas. |
Anthony Barton | 23 Mar 2016 12:34 p.m. PST |
If you add a touch of yellow ochre to the white used for belts, it makes a different white from the uniform. Since the original belts were actually buff leather, whitened with pipeclay that tended to wear off, I find this solution is both authentic and visually pleasing . |
von Winterfeldt | 23 Mar 2016 1:17 p.m. PST |
I disagree with AB here – the belts were completly white through and through due to the process of treating the leather, in German it is called sämisches Leder, I bought ages ago the left overs used for the belts of the Guards to make our equipment belts for our re – enactment unit, you cut through the leather it is white it isn't just whitened brown leather. Those belts – in case they became dirty were pipe clayed which gave them a rather cold white appearance than a warm one. I opt for a warm white colour for the uniform wool. By the way units preferred to pipe clay white belts instead of treating and maintaining black belts which was a tedious job. |
1968billsfan | 23 Mar 2016 1:17 p.m. PST |
Okay, I'm not sure. I always thought that the very wide cross belts had to be fabric because they were so wide and that they were just white rather than the khaki we all loved so much. Were they actually expensive leather? |
Anthony Barton | 23 Mar 2016 2:35 p.m. PST |
Don't a want to fall out with von W ( a learned gent ) but there is more than one sort of buff leather. I have some samples of the white sort ( rather grey-white )which I believe is a relatively modern type, but I have also seen a fair bit of the older sort , cured originally with fish oil , which is quite distinctly yellow. In fact the yellow kind was normal until the 1750s, when the fashion of pipeclaying it gradually came in to use. And of course the original buff coats ( think Ironsides )were produced in the same way. I can't guarantee what the K&K Armee used around 1800, but the Brits were still using the yellow type at that date. |
von Winterfeldt | 24 Mar 2016 2:34 a.m. PST |
The buffle – or sämisch Leder / Leather was expensive to produce and needed a long time to do so, black leather or the usual "buff" or natural leather had not the identical quality and did not stand the wear and tear as well as buffle or sämisches leather. There are complaints from French regiments – to Berthier in 1809 that they still had to use natural leather and they demanded buffle – the laconic answer was – use whatever you get. In those days this high quality white leather couldn't be produced in a short time and as substitude blackened leather as well as natural leather had to be used (see French Revolutionary infantry)- when a lot of new units had to be raised in a short time. Of course I don't know how the buff of the British army looked like in the Napoleonic period, and still recently I was quite uninterested about the British Army – but I was under the impression that buff could also have a meaning of quality of leather instead of the usual buff colour, like the French use buffle to describe this high quality leather – but buff in the original days (ECW) was of buff colour and was for that reason still called buff out of tradition instead of being calles white (and I may be completly wrong about this). I just had a look in Strachan, Hew : British Miliatry Uniforms 1768 – 1798 (a marvelous book in my opinion) – article XXX. That the buff may at all times be perfectly clean, and free from spots, every sholdier should be provided with a ball of white pipe – clay, to be scraped in water mixed with allum, and laid on in a thin paste, which besides being a cheaper colouring, that that of whiting and oker, is universally allowed, … page 158 from 1768. Bennet Cuthbertson; A System for the Compleat Interior Management and Oeconomy of a Battalion of Infantry, Dublin In the end – this will be a very academical question, there we don't know how freshly cured buff with fish oil looked like (there white pigments in some oil colours yellow as well during the age and when put on fresh look perfectly white) – in the end one has to decide for oneself what would suit best for his style of painting and colour sensivity (which is highly individualistic). Still, I find it a good idea – to paint on white uniforms two different qualities of white – to enhance the distinction of whites, so a "warm" white in contrast to a "cold" white. I don't want to fall out with AB either – just to explain my reasoning and eager to learn and to modify my opinion – about "buff" ;-). |
Anthony Barton | 24 Mar 2016 4:02 a.m. PST |
No dispute with you , von W , I would not presume .Your contributions are always interesting and well informed. That's an interesting set of references, thanks for finding them.The Bennett Cuthbertson one is from exactly the period when British soldiers started using white pipeclay.The colour of the breeches and waistcoats changed in the same era to white. I do agree that " buff " was a generic term for a type of leather , as well as being the colour associated with it.The term was used for the leather from at least the mid-16th century , when jackets of such leather became fashionable among military men. Presumably the word was used for the colour from then on. It was always rather expensive , and the cost of coats in the ECW was complained of at the time . We also know that they sometimes used a little yellow ochre to enhance the yellow colour … so pipeclay , albeit in yellow form , is quite old ! Buff leather of the old type is very hard to get nowadays, I understand, and as an -ex-reenactor I recall that the only type obtainable was the whitish type you described, which as I recall had a truly unendurable smell ! I also agree, going back to the original painting discussion , that the use of a "warm " white for the belts, over a "cool white for the uniform, makes the best effect. |
von Winterfeldt | 24 Mar 2016 6:31 a.m. PST |
for me just the other way round ;-))
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Jemima Fawr | 27 Mar 2016 11:42 a.m. PST |
Cheers Mr B, You and I actually had the same conversation a great many years ago, when MH acquired some exquisitely-painted and distinctly cream-shaded AB Saxons (I wish I'd got my hands on those when he sold the collection!). The trouble is that I'm inherently lazy… ;) |
Jemima Fawr | 27 Mar 2016 11:46 a.m. PST |
In fact, now I come to think of it, I tend to do it the other way around in 28mm – cream undercoat for the uniforms and grey undercoat for belts. |
Jemima Fawr | 27 Mar 2016 11:47 a.m. PST |
Bloody nice Austrians there vW… Stop it. ;) |
Supercilius Maximus | 27 Mar 2016 3:03 p.m. PST |
Nice spiral on the flagpole there, von W!!! |