"paints" Topic

how do u guys feel about 3 or 4 kinds of Blue,Red or Green in the same battalion? i think it would show old and new uniforms.

Sounds good to me.

Or maybe in different battalions, reflecting how long each unit has been on campaign?

Matter of personal taste. My experience is that however careful you are with Napoleonics, someone will find a mistake. So just do what makes you happy

In my opinion, multiple colors in a single unit will look strange unless you have a lot of highlighting and shading of the uniforms. It will also look strange if the underlying tones are different (eg one blue is more green than another)

I have done Spanish units with several shades of brown and that works well, but that would be expected from Spanish

John

I think it depends how long a period of time units are on campaign and other factors like weather and dust/mud. My French have a mix of trouser colour.
With all countries I think wargames tend to not use enough figures in Greatcoats. Only some of my French are in greatcoats but none of my Austrians or Russians.

If you are a good painter and the variation in shades are subtle, it could look very effective.
If you just use say, 3 different blues, it could look a bit odd. Best thing is to experiment and see if you like the result. That's what matters, in the end.

Depends upon the year and whether it was the start of a campaign or not. Because of the dyes used my guess is to use the original color and add a little white to it as to add to the look of the color fading from washing and the sun.

Depends on which army.

In the British army all the men of a battalion got replacement uniforms at the same time. So each battalion should have a ‘uniform' age to their uniforms!

There is an excellent description of this in the diaries of a private or NCO of their time in the Peninsula. Sorry, I can't remember which one as I have read dozens of them!

Other armies possibly did something similar…

Patches on elbows, knees are another way to show wear

I figure that trousers would be the first to need replacement due to general wear, tears, etc. So, like Rosenberg, I sometimes paint trousers different colors to reflect local or enemy sourced replacements-I realize that the style and cut of issue trousers and such replacements would probably be different, but I don't think it's very noticeable in the smaller scales. To my eye that adds a bit of variety without being too obvious.

And, as Skip says, a few patches of different colors here and there can add to the worn look, without worrying about the particular tint a normal uniform color would fade to.

Not the same period at all, but I painted my 15mm Russian Civil War figures in a range of khakis. I could barely tell the difference at 6" let alone 3'.