One slight complication I have here is that Eric painted the Regiment Kurprinz (2 bns of this) with black facings - I wish to have the facings light blue, as per the regs, so I must overpaint the cuffs and coat turnovers. This sounds simple enough - first issue is that whatever I do is going to be a compromise, since the coats of the chaps in the regiment are painted in slightly differing shades of blue - I'm not worried about this, since I can always claim that the uniforms would vary, not to mention fade, and I'm sure those big fancy cuffs weren't made of the same material as the main bit of the coat. OK - good, that's Bluff #1. The next challenge is to choose a decent shade of blue to do the job. It doesn't have to perfect, but should not be ridiculous - if I can't find a suitable shade for the cuffs, one of the alternatives might be to paint the coats as well, which doesn't strike me as an attractive idea.
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| Illustration borrowed from WSS Bavarians blog, which, in turn, borrowed it from Anton Hoffman's book |
I find that I have 22 different shades of blue, and that's without getting to the enamels and the model railway colours. A great many could be rejected out of hand, since they were obviously too dark - some others had congealed, of course, which is always a risk. I roughed out a short list, and painted some blotches on clean white photographic paper. Since I rather enjoyed painting the big blue blobs, I have included a scan of the sample sheet.
You would think that Foundry's Bavarian Cornflower Blue would be a good shout, and that is what I've used for my Napoleonic Bavarians, but in the early 1700s it seems that the uniform colour was much paler. I'm delighted to announce that the Contesse and I - independently! - both chose Coat d'Arms #206 Light Blue, which should be close enough - so that's something I don't need to worry about any further. Mission accomplished.
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To restate the theme of this post, here's the excellent Robben Ford, when he was much younger than he is today, playing live on Italian TV, a very slow version of his interpretation of Mose Allison's arrangement of Duke Ellington's classic song (are you following this?), I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues. You may not like his ponytail, but I think it's hard to find fault with the music.
Take that.
Respect due.
ReplyDeleteI would have picked the wrong colour, painted everything, cussed at getting it wrong, then let it go onto the table anyway in a fit of pique.
The 50 year old me is not as meticulous as the little 12 year old git who counted buttons.
VEry much looking forward to the WSS rules. I have Blenheim coming up soon.
Rules still taking shape - I have all the bits. As Spike Milligan said of his autobiography, they have been assembled from lavatory walls all over Europe.
DeleteI’d have voted for Vallejo Deep Sky, but then I’m a bit blue-purple colour blind so it’s probably totally wrong.
ReplyDeleteGood chune. Never mind the pony tail. Look at the shoulder pads, buttoned up shirt and mullet on the presenter. I only ever committed two of those offences.
The Vallejo shade seems a decent guess, but the problem is we have to match the painted figures rather than the plate - I'm happy with the choice we've made, and if it's wrong the fault will all be mine anyway.
DeleteThat's Ford's own band (The Blue Line) all the way over there in Italy, plus an add-on organist. I wonder if he took his Dumble amplifier in an aeroplane? Those oversize suits are something else - I think this is 1989 - if you turned round too quickly in those jackets the garment would stay still and you'd catch it up a lap later. Did shoulder pads count one offence for the two, or one each?
I’m only counting them once. The other offence being the buttoned up shirt with no tie.
DeleteYour dedication to the cause of perfection does you credit Sir!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it won't be particularly brilliant, but if I'm not happy with the colour match I'll fret about it for years...
DeleteI'd have gone with the Tomb blue myself, but there's not a lot between tomb and light blue.
ReplyDeleteThat was our second choice - the painted figures really are closer to the Coat d'Arms shade, honest!
DeleteIf given the choice of those shades of blue, I would have agreed with you and the Contesse. By coincidence, I have Kurprinz on my painting table, too, but for the SYW and in 15mm. Its facing color is white!
ReplyDeleteHi Jon - I'm sure you're right - maybe the colours changed before the SYW? Best info I've got for the WSS is that white facings for the Leibregt, though the Leibregt's grenadier battalion had sky blue cuffs. Lots of regiments had sky blue, it seems - Kurprinz, Spilberg. D'Octfort. The figures I have here are very carefully painted with buff breeches - no idea where that came from, but I may leave them buff! If anyone challenges your uniform details, you just smile faintly and shake your head slightly. No-one knows anyway! I hope to have a battalion of RED grenadiers in my Bavarian army, just for variety! That's about a couple of months away - lock downs permitting.
DeleteI painted up this very army in 6mm ...um...several years ago and still have nightmares about mixing the right blue. And I still don't know that I got it right. The first army that I resorted to pre-printed paper flags too, for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that real heroes would have hand-painted 6mm Bavarian flags - I never met a real hero - I only read about them - mostly in their own blogs. Old John kindly sent me a Robert Hall plate of the guidon for the Bavarian Guard Heavy Cavalry - what a nightmare - it's like an entry for a Blue Peter painting competition. As I said to John, the opposing commanding general would have to find his reading glasses to see what he'd captured.
DeleteA blue Thursday as opposed to Monday then? I look forward to seeing what you do with them.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be a little while, definitely, but hope to get a photo up here next week.
DeleteFunny how the days have become meaningless - I know today is Friday because I have to get up early to put the dustbin out in the lane, otherwise the week has no structure at all. My son is off school (though he has to follow a timetable of on-line lessons, so he at least should know what's going on), my diary is empty and there is no football - strange, featureless week. As far as possible, I'm trying to develop a daily routine, but that's as strategic as it gets. I guess we'll get the hang of this. All the best.
Martin S (Google-free Martin) sent an email, expressing surprise that commenters had offered opinions on which shade to use, without my publishing a picture of the existing figures the paint has to match. Being an impertinent fellow, he wonders how many of us like to do crosswords without seeing the clues?
ReplyDeleteHe would have carried this all off better if he had not then gone on to suggest (also without sight of the figures) that the Vallejo shade is the one to go for. Martin is very fond of Vallejo paints - I think he feels it's snobbery; if I'd included a Vallejo red it would have got into Martin's top 3. Still, I love him dearly. Keep safe, Martin.
You could always lighten the coats a bit every few years as they fade from being on campaign.
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I actually saw an example of Bavarian Sky Blue in the flesh(or would that be in the cloth)... I was very surprised at how dark it actually is...
ReplyDeleteOf course this hasn’t stopped me using a lighter colour on my own Bavarians...;-)
All the best. Aly...
The historical color was likely done using some form of Prussian Blue for the pigment; it was accidentally discovered circa 1706, and made a fairly inexpensive and relatively stable blue pigment available for the first time.
ReplyDelete