"Painting Donop Regiment of Hessians for AWI" Topic

I just put together a regiment of 24 figures – including 4 for the grenadier company (which I think was detached) and had some questions:

1. Did everyone have a queue? My figures from Warlord had enough queues for everyone so I glued them on…
2. What blue would you use for the coats – is prussian blue right?
3. Straw (mix of buff and white?) for the facings and small clothes/waistcoats? Some pictures have white small clothes.
4. What did they have around the neck? The reenactors seem to favour a red cravat with the white collar visible over the top. Some illustrations have what looks like a black cravat.
5. What colour for the hat lace?
6. What colour for the 3 pompoms (or is it one pompom and 2 sort of lacy fringes at the edges of the tricorn)?
7. The wide belt for the cartridge box is white – but what colour for the other crossbelt for the breadbag?
8. What colour for the breadbag (grey like the redcoats?)
9. Brass buckle on white waist belt?
10. Brown leather scabbards with brass end?
11. Sword knots?
12. Brown leather strap for the musket?
13. What colour for the embossing/decoration on the cartridge box?
14. What colour for the material behind the brass plate of the grenadiers caps? Straw?
15. Should the grenadiers get fancy lace figure 8 on their facings?
16. What colour are the drummers chevrons – I think maybe red/straw/blue based on a picture of the re-enactors?
17. Drum body – the reenactors looks like brass?
18. Bands at top and bottom of drum – blue & white diagonal stripe?
19. Gold Hat lace for officers & NCOs?
20. Would the officer get a brass gorget with red/white lion.
21. Is 2 bands of gold lace below the facings and above the cuffs correct? There's an officer and private picture on vondonop.org where the officer's lace looks like a different colour, maybe a dark red, and the reanactors' officer looks like a colour other than gold – maybe with some gold stringy lace down the arms.
22. Officer's sash – reanactors have white with 2 red stripes

Any ideas/feedback much appreciated (Thanks for bearing with this long list)

Grenadiers would be detached. They wouldn't be with the parent regiment. Of course, this gives you a head start on one of your Hessian grenadier battalions.
Grenadiers would not be painted any differently from the center companies, with the exception of the fancy hat.

For "straw", I used Ceramcote Straw. You may as well paint the smallclothes straw too.

I painted the sash as white with silver and red.

Reenactors have access to exactly the same sources as wargamers or book illustrators, with the advantage of group politics. There is absolutely no reason to assume their research is in any way special or more accurate.

Peter,
I just finished my Warlords Fusilier Donop. They are my best guess and I did not go into the detail that you are going to. My painting philosophy is if they look okay at two feet they are good enough.
Aside from the internet i used the following to cob together a paint scheme
Uniforms of the American Revolution- Mollo and McGregor
Soldiers of the American Revolution by Troiani
Uniforms of the American War of Independce Smith, Kiley and Black

I figured the queue same as you except not for my officers or standard bearers
I used craft paints Prussian blue – which as you know, is very dark.
Third book said small clothes were straw
First book shows them in red
Hats, according to first book is gold/yellow and since the fusiier hat is brass thats what I went with
first book shows one pom as white topped w/ black
Cross belt is a toss up but I went with the same color as the bag. That added a different color and its a thin line anyway. Probably couldn't tell at two feet. Breadbag got a slight tan from me.
First book is predominately not brass but there are exceptions.
Troiani shows a brown scabbard but no brass for the grenadier Rall.
Troiani clearly shows two surviving examples of cartridge box plates for two different Hessian units. Both are brass.
I did not make grenadiers for them but I would guess it would be the same as their small clothes unless noted otherwise.'
My drummers got a dry brush of white and then a lighter dry brush of red
Drum stripes I guessed the same as you – for what that is worth.
I did gold for the officers but not the NCO. Clearly I have no clue. As a former NCO i wanted very much to NOT resemble an officer.
Troiani did not have an example of a red and white lion, nor did the first book; but the second seems to show an example of a von Knyphausen with such a gorget.
I gave my officers gloves – problem solved
My officers are silver sash with two (cause thats all I can manage) red stripes.
I doubt this did much to help; but with poor eyesight and two feet distance they look okay. Good luch

Thanks for your responses – very helpful in figuring out the approach. I did some more searching on TMP and came up with this thread – although the NCOs maybe did have gold lace they did NOT resemble the officers since, as ever, they looked like they knew what they were doing.

TMP link

While what Winston says is true about re-enactors, let's just say they tend to focus more on the details, especially ones related to their unit.

Here is the link to the re-enactment unit. Their research is regarded as first class. Their unit leader works with museums around the world – in fact, I believe it is his full time job.

vondonop.org

As <historygamer> says, you can't go wrong with the von Donop Regt website, or with "Hessian Bob" who posts on here as <RNSulentic>.

One more thing (and my apologies if you already knew this): please don't get hung up over the use of the term "Prussian blue". It is usually employed to describe an exact shade of blue, manufactured chemically (ie not using natural dyes) and comes from the 19th Century. It is NOT the blue used to dye the coats of Prussian soldiers in the 18th Century. This involved either woad or indigo (I forget which was in fashion/allowed to be imported at the time).