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Author Topic: French Artillery Green?  (Read 2422 times)

Offline Harry Faversham

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French Artillery Green?
« on: October 14, 2019, 09:27:59 AM »
What is, in the Brethren's esteemed opinion, the best shade of Vallejo green to paint Boney's gun carriages?
Back in the day, when I last did some of these you didn't have to ask, Humbrol did our thinking for us with their 'Authentic Colours' range...
Never understood why nobody's ever tried to reproduce 'Humbrol Authentic Colours - Flesh'!

???
"Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

"I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

Offline vtsaogames

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    • Corlears Hook Fencibles
Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2019, 11:46:58 AM »
Do what they did. Mix black and yellow.
And the glorious general led the advance
With a glorious swish of his sword and his lance
And a glorious clank of his tin-plated pants. - Dr. Seuss


My blog: http://corlearshookfencibles.blogspot.com/

Offline Harry Faversham

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2019, 11:30:42 PM »
Do what they did. Mix black and yellow.

Thanks for that...
It's reely useful.

 ::)

Offline RobertBruce

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2019, 12:58:07 AM »
I think I read that the French did mix black and green for their carriages, etc. Perhaps a Vallejo olive comes closest, maybe with a small amount of black mixed in. If you are painting a small scale, say 15mm or smaller, brighter colors may make the models pop out on the table more effectively.

In any case, like so much about colors for Napoleonics, there may not be a consistent right answer because there were so many variables regarding paint and dyes etc. in those days. Not to mention weather and hard usage. RB

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2019, 12:58:46 AM »
They used exactly the same proportion of lamp-black to ochre (iirc either 99:1 or 100:1) as did the US Army during WW2 to make Olive Drab vehicle paint (which in Humbrol terms is 155).  I like something a touch greener, so use Humbrol 159 - same colour as my WW2 British vehicles.

Re Humbrol Authentic Colour - most of the colours were/are available in the main range anyway.  They just stuck a different label on it and charged a bit more (e.g. the three German WW2 camo colours are in the main range as 83, 86 and 160).  I've known people to argue the toss, but this was confirmed to me by Humbrol's chief chemist.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2019, 01:02:04 AM by Jemima Fawr »
Suffering from insomnia?  Too much excitement in your life?  Jemima Fawr's Miniature Wargames Blog might be just the solution you've been looking for: www.jemimafawr.co.uk

Offline Etranger

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  • Posts: 917
Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2019, 02:24:48 AM »
They used exactly the same proportion of lamp-black to ochre (iirc either 99:1 or 100:1) as did the US Army during WW2 to make Olive Drab vehicle paint (which in Humbrol terms is 155).  I like something a touch greener, so use Humbrol 159 - same colour as my WW2 British vehicles.

Re Humbrol Authentic Colour - most of the colours were/are available in the main range anyway.  They just stuck a different label on it and charged a bit more (e.g. the three German WW2 camo colours are in the main range as 83, 86 and 160).  I've known people to argue the toss, but this was confirmed to me by Humbrol's chief chemist.

And Humbrol 150 is French Artillery Green by another name...
"It's only a flesh wound...."

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2019, 11:42:56 AM »
And Humbrol 150 is French Artillery Green by another name...
Is it indeed?!  :)

I use that for Russian tanks and it's probably a little bit bright for my tastes, but there's not that much difference compared to 159 (155 is very brownish).

Offline black hat miniatures

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2019, 01:23:39 PM »
And I was told that Humbrol Authentic colours were merely the nearest pantones anyway...

Mike
Mike Lewis

Black Hat Miniatures
www.blackhat.co.uk

Offline vtsaogames

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2019, 01:17:23 AM »
They used exactly the same proportion of lamp-black to ochre (iirc either 99:1 or 100:1) as did the US Army during WW2 to make Olive Drab vehicle paint (which in Humbrol terms is 155). 

Most interesting! Thank you. If and when I get around to painting up Shermans (and a US force to go with it)...

The color I get from mixing black and yellow is quite different from other paints I've used. Didn't ever really use Humbrol.

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2019, 09:57:08 AM »
Most interesting! Thank you. If and when I get around to painting up Shermans (and a US force to go with it)...

The color I get from mixing black and yellow is quite different from other paints I've used. Didn't ever really use Humbrol.
I'm not sure that simply mixing black and yellow really works.  It's something to do with the chemical reaction between lamp-black and ochre that creates the greenish tone.

Offline emosbur

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2019, 12:30:19 PM »
Humbrol 155 is not WWII olive drab, is the modern olive drab from Federal Standard. WWII Olive drab is very different. Moreover, there were three different Olive Drabs: one from the Army, for vehicles, and two for ythe Air Forces.

Offline vtsaogames

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2019, 01:21:12 PM »
I'm not sure that simply mixing black and yellow really works.  It's something to do with the chemical reaction between lamp-black and ochre that creates the greenish tone.

It's how I painted my most recent French artillery and I'm quite pleased with the color. I have a busy weekend ahead, might be a bit before I can dig out my guns and photograph them. Even then, the digital camera might decide to render the color differently.

Offline Etranger

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2019, 07:11:51 AM »
Humbrol 155 is not WWII olive drab, is the modern olive drab from Federal Standard. WWII Olive drab is very different. Moreover, there were three different Olive Drabs: one from the Army, for vehicles, and two for ythe Air Forces.
http://mojobob.com/stuff/Zaloga%20-%20Olive%20Drab.pdf

There was a more recent article by Steve Zaloga on the Miliitary Modelling website but that seems to have disappeared along with the site itself.  :'(

Offline Jemima Fawr

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2019, 11:31:25 AM »
Humbrol 155 is not WWII olive drab, is the modern olive drab from Federal Standard. WWII Olive drab is very different. Moreover, there were three different Olive Drabs: one from the Army, for vehicles, and two for ythe Air Forces.
Humbrol 155 looks exactly right to me - very brown and not very green at all.  That's not scientific, but it looks perfect to my eye.

Offline emosbur

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Re: French Artillery Green?
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2019, 08:51:22 PM »
From the article by Zaloga quoted by Etranger:

"Basically, the only colour that comes close to the wartime colour is the Tamiya acrylic XF62, with the Poly Scale acrylic a distant second. Two colours fell for the old FS-595A snag, Gunze Sangyo and Model Master which are too light and vivid for wartime Olive Drab. The two Model Master paints intended to represent AN 613 dark Olive Drab are both too grey for the army colour. Humbrol 155 is too green for US Olive Drab."

The closest colour to Olive Drab is RAL 7013.

« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 09:00:32 PM by emosbur »