I'm painting a big lot of Napoleon III's fleet (1852-1870), including lots of wooden steam warships.
All of the paintings and prints I can find show the French wooden warships in the typical "Nelson checker" (white stripes along each gun deck, black on the gunport lids and the rest of the exterior). Ironclads appear to have been all-black.
Sometimes lower masts were painted white, sometimes left wood color. Given that the same ship is sometimes shown in one pattern and sometimes the other, I plan to take advantage of this to help differentiate ships of the same class.
I can't find any color pictures of the deck areas or interior spaces, so I don't know what colors to paint things like the ships' sides, the gun carriages, etc. Does anyone have a clue, or sources that would help?
Without any clues, I'll just default to pale wood decks, white interior walls and black gun carriages, but it would sure be nice if they looked different from other navies.
- Ix
