"What green for British rifles?" Topic

Looking at uniform guides I have seen everything from bright green to black green. Which should it be? An illustration would be helpful.

TIA

Dave

I've always used Vallejo black green, seems about right to me. As for what's the correct colour, I just copied the current Rifles beret colour. Are there any original uniforms in museums that you could look at?

Dark green.

Are there any original uniforms in museums that you could look at?

Which in all probability will be faded.

Thanks for the suggestions. British uniforms aren't in many US museums.

Don't sweat it too much. Evidently there really isn't a good colorfast vegetable green dye, so the idea was usually to dye it almost to black and let it sort of fade through green on its way to yellow-gray.

Myself, I use a dark green for British rifles and a medium green for Americans and let it go at that.

Robert has it right. Even different lots of uniforms would show some variance when new.

I believe the term used for the intended color was "bottle green," meaning the extremely dark and dull green used for many wine bottles. But I do agree with Robert Piepenbrink about the instability of green derived from vegetable-based dye, especially since it had to be achieved by a double dying, first with yellow, and then blue (or vice versa, I don't remember for sure).

Paul :)

Plenty of scope for any darkish green you fancy there Paul, thanks for finding that.

A photo taken in uncertain lighting of variable temperature and colour, on a camera without calibration, viewed on a uncalibrated monitor, of an old and possibly faded and oxidized sample is at best only a rough guideline of the most basic sort. It is no better a source then to just read the words of a contemporary describing it as "green".

It is no better a source then to just read the words of a contemporary describing it as "green".

Really?

But a better guideline than any other unless you wish visit and ask to take a photograph in a perfectly lit setting (whatever that means, considering light is different 24 hours per day) with an excellent camera.

People argue the toss over the shade of a colour which they will never see or if they do, it'll be in some museum but will still go away with a picture different from the real thing.

Go with as near as damn it! After all, yours will be as accurate as anyone's.

So don't dismiss original examples shown by others, especially when it is just as good or better than an artist's or a Hobby paint company's impression.

I like having a reference point even if it an old uniform in a museum. Fading will occur in all cases unless the uniform was never worn. Even if not worn on service it can still fade.
I can use this to extrapolate at least in my eye, a color that would be reasonable.
I left a dark green towel outside over the winter here in British Columbia, the next spring any part that was exposed to sun and weather was a pale green almost white.

My point is we will never know based on that photo or even by seeing the real thing. If anyone bitches to me about the painting of my fig's facings' shade being wrong based on what he saw in a museum….I would be tempted to spill my beer on the pedantic fellow.

Fading can occur whether worn or not. Pigments react to light and atmosphere. Molds, mildew, oxidation, All have an effect. Was it on a pedestal in the hall of a Victorian pipe smoker?.Did the oil/kerosene lamps/coal soot darken it or bleach it? (Visit the Ancient shell grotto in Margate to see what kind of bleaching can occur from the lamps of the Victorian period ) Was the initial dye a standard or just that particular lot's outcome? Was it re-dyed in restoration? Even today, with modern dyes, look at a formation of troops and you will see a lot of variance. You really haven't anything definitive, an approximation at best. So yes: Really. There never was a standard or correct color in the first place in 1815.

@dibble,

I understand your irritation at the post above, but (as a former museum curator) I also understand what he was getting at. Our perception of color is a bit of an illusion. Any given object's color is really just the portion of the spectrum of light that it reflects, but that is influenced by the light source, as well as the object's material.

I once saw an exhibit designer demonstrate how dramatically different the same group of objects looked when illuminated by different types of light source. Incandescent bulbs shift the color toward red, fluorescent lights give a greenish cast, and the new LED lights may vary, but the ones I have seem to be bluish. To compensate for this, professional photographers use special light bulbs that mimic the spectrum of natural sunlight when shooting indoors. When shooting for publication, at least in the days before digital photography, they also included a standard "color bar" (normally cropped out of the published image) to enable a printer to calibrate and correct for the effects of different types of color film. It should be noted that the printers do not always necessarily get it right. I have been startled to find in duplicate copies of two different books that, when examined side by side, color illustrations are significantly darker in one copy than the other.

I offer this just by way of caution that we should always take with a grain of salt any single source when dealing with the subject of uniform color, even when it is an image of an original uniform.

Having said that, the series of images you posted look right to me, allowing for the fact that the fabric has surely faded somewhat with time.

attilathepun47

Umm! I'm sure that if you read my post again, you will see that I said that you should go with a reference that is as near as damn it.

All we have is extant uniform samples. No matter what system of collecting the colour of a uniform, even if it was an original sample patch from a uniform book, It will only be a sample from a single bolt of cloth, which may differ in shade to that issued say to a year or years later. That's why I posted that you should go for a colour that is as near as damn it. To have Photographic evidence is the best evidence one can have. Who's to say the colour tone in that photo is wrong?

Even if when comparing a photo against the sample and it looks a shade lighter or darker, It's still 'as near as damn it'.

Perhaps even going with my uniform schematics would be "near as damn it" too?

TMP link

Paul :)

Yes.

I don't want to seem disparaging of your efforts to provide reasonable examples. I just get a little uppity when folks at a con startto moan that my shade of say, gosling green, is not accurate. We have all run into those. I don't want to give them any possible ammunition for more sniping! I actually enjoyed your photo. Thanks.

Mick – Yes I think we have all had that happen a convention. My usual answer is "Yes, So?"

I generally ask them if I can borrow their time machine.

So, appearently the correct color is "green".

"Green-ish" 😀

Except during leap year or in the presence of Daleks . Then it is blue mixed with yellow.