Questions about Victorian England

[frogimus]

After painting up a few Sarissa and MicroArts buildings, I realized they are a bit bright and look more like suburban retro architecture

. I suspect the photo references I used were a bit modern and a bit American. It just seems like Victorian structures from the period would be more muted and sooted.

Any ideas on paint colors? The sooting I can get from weathering products, but I really want the base colors to be correct.

[Diakon]

I think most brickwork would be reddish.



Or sandy beige.



Got these pics from a quick google search but I live in a village built in the early 1900's so I was reasonably sure from experience.

Hope this helps.

[Steve F]

Soot everywhere.  When I was a little kid I thought the Houses of Parliament were made of mahogany, they were so dark.  Modern photos are misleading -  they were only eventually cleaned up in the 1980s to the sandstone colours you see now, and many other buildings have been cleaned too. (Edit: just checked, it's actually limestone.)

[frogimus]

So painted clapboard is more American in origin? I think I will repaint in stone and brick colors then bedazzle them with a liberal coating of weathering powders.

Any more photos would be appreciated. I think google looks at my US IP and serves the photos it thinks are relevant.  In this case, I ended up with a modern suburbia board.

[OSHIROmodels]

Have a look here...

This is London stock and is the base colour for the cast majority of 'normal' buildings in London and as Steve rightly said they would've been covered in soot etc but obviously newer buildings would be cleaner.

Hope that's a help 

cheers

James

[frogimus]

Thanks, James! That helped a lot since I would have likely used too red a color for my bricks.

[OSHIROmodels]

No worries 

Red was still used but for more important buildings but it wasn't really bright red, more of a deeper red.

cheers

James

[Steve F]

As Jim says, mostly yellow brick for London.  Red brick was commoner further north.  Pick one as the most common for any given town - they tended to use local materials.  A good Victorian look for important brick buildings is to mix different colours of brick in allegedly decorative patterns.  A striking example is Keble College, Oxford, built c. 1870.

So painted clapboard is more American in origin?

No clapboard at all in Britain, really.  Even back-to-back slums were brick-built.  The only wooden structures you'd be likely to see were sheds and the like.

[OSHIROmodels]

Sorry Steve, there were clapboard buildings in London. Not many in comparison to the rest of London I'll grant you but the Lost London book by English Heritage has plenty of examples (even on the cover).

Limehouse, Shoreditch and other such slums would have had a fair few as it was quite a temporary building solution.

cheers

James

[Steve F]

Thanks, Jim.  I've never see anything more substantial than a cricket pavilion before, but here's Bartholomew Close in London, also 1870:



Have any survived?

[Gary Peach]

Use a dark brown as the base coat, and dry brush a terracotta - Revell Reddish Brown is a good 1 to use.  Paint the odd brick in dark tones of brown, some dark 'purple' like iron brick, then lightly dry brush with an ocher.  Weather using inks and washes if your looking for a sooty look.

For Stone, work from a mid brown - like Humbrols old Dark Earth, use an ochre or a 'warm grey' then pick out the 'brick/stone' and light drybrush of beige...  again soot as needed. 

Not all of Victorian England suffered from dark satanic mills...  its when coal started to be used for electricity production at the end of the 1880s and early 20th century the soot really built up.

There are and were timber - lap board buildings in London,  however very rare as after the fire of London in 1666 they banned wooden construction.  Wood was used as they needed to build quickly, but they were replaced with brick.  The clapboard buildings near the Thames survived because they were close to the river.  Newer buildings are rough brickwork covered in planks.

I have a look at facebook for marchattack, scroll through the pictures to see painted Gaslamp stuff.

[frogimus]

Thanks to everyone. There really is an amazing collective of information within the members of LAF.