"aesthetics V's accuracy" Topic

Philosophical questions really, I've just got into painting Napoleonics because my son wants to play that period.
He's into his history(me not so much). But I just wondered what people thought to how important exact historical accuracy was.
Obviously there is no point doing historical wargamming if you are going to paint your romans in the style of Gladiator and make your British Red Coats Pink,
I dont think it matters if you do do that, its just Fantasy not Historical. But at the same time if you use a slightly wrong shade of blue for a canteen bottle or miss a button on a tunic its no biggie.
But where do you draw the line ?
I've seen photos of painted French line infantry with very blue coats, but photos of Re-enactments with almost black coats.
Now for aesthetic reasons I want a bit of blue in a french mans coat, even if historically it would really appear black.
I've recently painted some Hussars and all the pictures showed them wearing gold braid, so I painted them gold. Turns out that was just the officers, privates should be yellow.
But the gold looks so good, I'm keeping them gold.

Also there can be several interpretations of accurate depending on source material.
So, What do people thing is a step too far ?
Obviously at the end of the day its a bunch of blokes playing toy soldiers and none of it really matters, but I mean is there a general acceptable level of poetic license

I don't believe there is any line drawn in the sand, and if there were, each of us would be drawing it at a different spot. And any rules set you use is going to be so out of whack and full of fudging that the "correct shade of blue?" question fades in comparison.

Enjoy your toys!

The only person you have to please is yourself.

My self I collect and dont game all that much, so accuracy is very important to me.
However, I do not tend to lose slep over which shade of blue is correct.
As long as the blue is blue, and the red is red, I write variation in shades off to weathering and wear;)
I also collect 15/18mm so I do get away with some minor mistakes, its harder if the size of the mini increases I guess.

It depends a lot on what scale you're playing. If you're doing 28mm or larger, you would want to avoid cutting corners because it becomes much more obvious. Maybe they aren't obvious now to you, but other players may notice and in time, you will learn to notice it.

The scales determine how much detail you want to capture and the scale of what you want to play. So if your son is a trendy type and is going with what is popular over what is practical, then not adhering to the uniform guides will likely create more work down the road as he becomes more obsessed with the time period. He'll either want to try to repaint them or replace them. Been there, done that.

A smaller scale offers far more flexibility in this area. At 6mm, you're only painting the very basics and going for mass effect. Buttons could not be seen and coat colors should be left darker. You also have and advantage in representing the figures in accurate formations.

15mm/18mm gives a good compromise between the two scales but still leaning toward details. Though this is the scale I use, I work to get them as close as possible to being accurate. All the straps, lace etc matter as when you're painting highly detailed figures from AB, they stand out. Putting that extra effort into getting it right the first time, even if it takes longer, is much more rewarding.

For scale we're doing 28mm. But from the replies I can see 2 camps, gamers and historical buffs. Obviously the history buffs are going to be more accurate. We are following the painting guides, but limiting to the paints we already have unless its the main colour. It was more of a philosophical meandering than a painting tip question :-)

Though I guess the point is, at what point will people object, Gold Braid, Blue Romans, Blond Greeks, Black Vikings, Space Marines fighting for Bonaparte ?

Oh, I'm a complete historical buff (nut)--I'll gladly argue about what pigment was used on Russian Napoleonic artillery and wagons, but I think it makes for a better experience to make yourself happy and not worry about what others may think.

Space marines…eh, let's think about that one…

Hiker, since you asked… link

There is only so far you can go with 'accuracy'. De Ligne has it right, above.

Sure I read somewhere there due to the sun and poor quality dye used, the British uniform red was often pink, and due to dye running so was rest of uniform. So to 100% accurate perhaps the Brits should be pink.

I'd stop at anything I knew was flat wrong--but I've never had a problem with doing the less common, either for aesthetics or for identification. My French almost never wear overcoats, for instance, and my elite companies almost always have plumes.

As for French blue, remember that they were using an indigo dye--like jeans today--which means it won't stay very dark worn every day. And given the expense, I doubt it always even started as dark as a modern re-enactor can afford.

Try to stay a little darker than your Bavarians is my advise.

But the gold looks so good, I'm keeping them gold.

Oh NO! You have to repaint them all. The Gods of War require the right color… and you must beg their forgiveness, bowing in the direction of Paris.

Happy Holidays! Enjoy your hussars.

When I paint it is to please myself. If I've painted something the wrong color, virtually no one will know except for myself and possibly a button counter at a convention.
+1 de Ligne

Accuracy regarding the particular shade of an uniform made before the time of mass production and synthetic dyes is, for starters, as impossible as trying to force a politician to speak without equivocating. And even modern uniforms, theoretically produced using the same exact process, are not exactly equal to each other.

French -or any other country, for that matter- produced their uniforms through civilian contractors. Dyes and cloth varied depending on which bussiness was doing the job, and therefore reacted in different manner to the stress of campaigning. Some blues faded toward greys; others to lighter blues; finally, there were blues that degraded to pinkish salmon -yuck!-, depending on how they had been produced and what dyes had been used. And all of that without taking in account the particular meteorological and natural conditions, nor wastage or use, of the actual uniforms in campaing. Colour didn't react equally in Southern Spain in high Summer than in Germany in late Autumm.

By the way, "pinkish" red uniforms wouldn't have been so rare in the British regiments campaigning in Spain.

Thanks guys sounds likes a bit of leeway on the colours then. So what about a Waterloo shako on a peninsular soldier :-0 or using an 1814 busby instead of an 1815 cap! Or even a n imperial roman in the Punic wars ?

I've read some very strict post over the last few months ( not so much on this forum) and I just wondered what people thought was too much rope?

R.e. colours

I always think of my own school uniform in the 70s/80s. It was a particularly unsubtle shade of plum but, depending on the year (and shop) you'd bought your blazer, there were three quite different hues.
Whenever I'm painting British redcoats I think back to that – if there was such a lack of uniformity in colour for just 800 or so kids, imagine what it must have been like for the British army 200 years ago in a war that lasted 20 years.

And remember, all clothing was produced by the lowest bidder…

I remember one account where a Peninsular regiment received new coats and trousers in 1812. A week later they crossed a deep stream and their uniform, coat and trousers were pink from the waist down.

Opting for a slightly different shade (though still the correct color) often helps miniatures stand out a little better on the table. I tend to paint my miniatures a little brighter or lighter than the soldiers that they represent.

Kevin

Hiker,
I agree with most here suit yourself and your son. I have a unit of "Napoleonic" imaginary troops from my days in high school. they have fought well against both the French and the Allies. I have thought repeatedly about repainting them but the yellow jackets and green pants now have won a place in the center of any battle line with solid service.

So unless your budget and free time allow you to have every possible uniform for all armies, then revolutionary French may have to serve alongside the finest Guardsmen from 1815. I would probably try to do better if running a convention or demo game.

Anything that lets you spend time with your children is good and let the critics take an unhappy hike.

Go with what you are happy with, I try to be as accurate as I can based on my research, but that's not to say someone else won't disagree. Also I'm not building different armies based on minor uniform changes. Technically if I'm playing very early Peninsular war battles my British should be wearing long black gaiters or if post 1812/13 some should have "Waterloo/Belgic" shakos and grey trousers but stuff that for a game of soldiers :)
Good luck and have fun most importantly.

HH, it has already been said but you have to be pleased with what you painted. I too am limited on colours and use what I have. Pink, crimson or magenta all the same, red or scarlet uniforms, you choose. French blue, Prussian blue or dark blue its all dark blue to me and when you have 200 figures all in the same blue no none notices.
You could always argue with the 'expert' that their colours are wrong.

<Quote>but the yellow jackets and green pants now have won a place in the center of any battle line</Quote>
Made me laugh.

Obviously people are a bit more laid back than I'd feared. It maybe the posts I was reading were about demo games or something.
I suppose as long as you and your arch-Nemesis are agreed as to what is valid and what isn't, everything else is for the pedants. Mind you our last Orcs at the Battle of Bosworth game had General Kenobi(in Lego) as the general :-)

On top of what is real there is also viewing range. I once painted some 15 mm vikings close to the real colours. Even at wargames ranges they became completely indistinct. The colours need to be brighter to show up distinctly if viewed at range. So are you painting for close up or wargames? This gives loads of excusable latitude :-).
Like has been said please yourself.

As wargamers we have to make compromise between aestheticism and the vision thing.

The British red coats the dyes ran when it rained so the colour would bleed out of the coat into everything that was white and it would make them various shades of pink. This would apply to most armies as there where no chemical dyes.

Any army that was on campaign would have very little colour and be various shades of brown.

The compromise is between parade ground dressed and painted figures and campaign dress and all looking like brown lumps.

We all ready make compromises by using scale using a small numbers of figures to represent Battalion/Regiment on the table top.

When push come to shove it's up to the painter.

For masses of 15mm Napoleonics, a friend of mine deliniated the regiments by painting the blanket rolls in every color of the rainbow. I continue the tradition…

I try to be as historically correct as possible, but I'm not willing to paint two French armies one for Spain and another for Waterloo. With my 7years war French I do try and pick regiments that have pockets that match those on the Figure. But at the same time, I've used ACW Confederates to fill out the ranks in Nap period games.

Trying to match your painting to what was actual, is part of the fun.

You picked a scale and a period, now pick a battle from that period and model your figures on the Order of Battle for that battle and be happy with what you do.

W.r.t. Colours, how do we know what the contemporary colours looked anyway?

The best we have are written accounts (very inaccurate w.r.t. describing colours), paintings and drawings (limited by the colour palettes available), and some faded uniforms in museums. In other words, impressions of colours, not the actual colour.

So, I think it's perfectly fine to go for visual effect on the wargaming table. Pick the shade of blue for your French that best matches the visual look you are aiming for. I guess that trying to mimick colours accurately would produce a very bland looking gaming table.

Thinking on from other comments very few of use wargame in natural light, there are a myriad of colours for different lighting systems (white, cool white, warm white, daylight this only an example of the colours out there), all these will effect what your figures look like.

I know the light that a paint under is wildly different than the light I wargame under and I compensate when painting.

Actually, we do have fabric samples (if you look at my previous post in this thread, I put up a link).

Armiya Alexandra 1 also has pictures of Russian fabric samples of the period.

Lot of good advice here. I love the historical research involved in getting the uniforms right – and can get obsessive. And yet I happily field French veterans in gaiters and plumes and shako cords on the field of Salamanca in 1812 – which is nonsense from an accuracy view.

I think it is quite instructive to see what artists do when painting battle scenes – they face similar issues very often. You will see a huge variety of blues used for the French or Prussian uniforms – especially contemporary artists. If it's good enough for them…

Incidentally I read it was quite common for indigo-dyed blue uniforms to darken with age – not like jeans – something you see in museum specimens sometimes. The re-enactors are probably closer to the truth on that one than the illustrators. If that bothers you!