Benno's Figures

Hi all,
Just wanted to know what your thoughts on different fading of uniforms in the Napoleomic period as I feel when I see a Napoleonic dio all the unforms are all the same shade of colour where in real they would have been different through sunshine, age etc..

Not only that, slightly different dye batches can vary quite a lot between uniforms/cloth making items look different, even garments made in the same place. This is still true today with modern camo clothing. Using a palette with light and dark shades of the base color is the best way to show this

_________________
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

Very true just dosen't seem right when all the uniforms are the same colour in a Dio. Also I bet there was a lot changing of uniforms in battle when they were torn etc...

Well... I can describe it best with an example from my own army time.
Back when I served at the army, we got three sets of the classic khaki field uniform. At the start, many of us got three identical sets.
I had one set that was the every day set, followed by the second set that I wore when parts of the first set got too dirty or... used. That normally was followed by the third set at the end of the week - if necessary. During field service, you normally wore one set while having a second in your backpack. That kept the third set back in quarters which was expecially nice because you always had a clean and nice looking set left for exercise, guard service and 'parade'.

Now what happened was that the first set was worn the longest time, therefore being washed the most time, being confronted with sun, rain and dirt for the most time, etc. You ended up with a pretty faded uniform, one that looked almost new and one that was in between of that. Of course - by the actual circumstances, you were sometimes forced to wear the new trouser from set 3 with a faded jacket from set 1.

And now try to imagine how that worked out for a company of 50 soldiers. We all wore the same uniform, nevertheless looking all a bit different.

So if you want to display reality, all uniforms should look a bit different in field service. Additionally, soldiers tended to mix or alternate parts of the uniform or use parts that they had plundered from the enemy.
I had tried to display that when I painted my group of Chasseurs des Montagnes and it went out very well. Nevertheless, many of us Nappie painters rather paint the parade uniforms then the actual field dresses because of the look of it. And there is one practical reason, too: it is much less time consuming to paint a large number of soldiers 'by the book' in an industrial sort of painting procedure than it is when painting 20 figures with each having an individually faded and modified uniform.

_________________
More of my work on http://zedsnappies.blogspot.de/

I also served in the Army and like you say there was so many different shades of uniform on parade in mornig

I read not too long ago, unfortunately I can't remember where, that two officers in the Peninsula
compared their jackets after a time on campaign.
One was in red , the other in green.
When they put their arms side by side they could see no difference.

_________________
Fred

_________________
Remco

Just take a look at my blog
__________________________________________

Waiting for your duels to post in the Duel section!
Starting Organizing FIGZ 2013
Working on to many projects on the same time
Don't have enough free time for this hobby
__________________________________________

Okay