Keraunos | 22 May 2012 2:41 a.m. PST |
A really anorak question, for which I apologies in advance. If you are the sort who says 'we don't know so do what you like', please stop reading now as I don't need to hear that again. The new Vixtrix hoplites feature green tunics on the box – the figures look great, but I understood green was a hard colour to produce. As I'm about to paint some Tarantines in tunics, I'm looking for sensible colour advice. I'm pretty happy with white, off white, faded red etc, but are there any other colours which we can identify as likely? |
Elenderil | 22 May 2012 3:00 a.m. PST |
I would have thought that a combination of yellow and blue dye stuff could be used to produces a variety of greens. Woad is used throughout the ancient period to produce blues and was well known in the classical world as it originates in the near east. Yellows are an easy dye to produce onion skins and a number of other plants can produce it. So a combination of the two could create a green (albeit probably pretty dull). Reds are one of the commonest natural dyes so should be available too. Linen and wools in natural tones would be commonest I would expect especially for subsistence farming cultures providing levies. For the upper classes bleached white linen and for the richest purple either in strips on the edges or for the elite entire garments. Try searching on natural dyes on Google there is a good deal of useful stuff to be found. |
bsrlee | 22 May 2012 3:10 a.m. PST |
Green was possible, you just couldn't predict with any certainty what any given batch was going to turn out like – you could get olive green in varying shades or bottle green or a horrible mess. Some dyes were not very stable, others might rot the cloth. Green was also usually a 2 step process with the thread dyed blue or yellow, then the reverse, plus one or two mordants to make the dye 'fast'. So it would have been a more expensive color, but not as costly as purple. The other thing to consider is wether the tunic was dyed as thread or as finished cloth – both were practiced at the time. If processed as thread then the colour may only have been a relatively narrow strip in an off white garment. |
x42brown | 22 May 2012 3:35 a.m. PST |
Blue from woad is likely. It was a difficult to control weed in parts of Greece and I think likely to be used to use up in dying as composting does not always kill it as a weed. It would probably be the blue used when producing a green. X42 |
Keraunos | 22 May 2012 4:06 a.m. PST |
have we any cluse on the depth of shade available for blue and green ? I understood vibrant blues were veyr hard to obtain, so would lighter blues be safer (and thus lighter greens) |
x42brown | 22 May 2012 4:45 a.m. PST |
I know it's not the same era or area but my work in weavers and dyers (Scottish 1640 to 1950) archives suggest that lighter colours were both easier to make and maintain than darker ones but the darker were more popular and worth the extra to those that could afford dyed cloth in the first place. Darker and more intense colours done by several separate dyings for greens blue and yellow often alternating. I'll put in an emphasis on the unreliable of green by the time I have worked on they knew ways to be confident of a good green but not the same green. X42 |
Craig R Davey | 22 May 2012 4:47 a.m. PST |
Try googling Agios Athanasios tomb. Nice Hellenistic colours there
Regards, Craig |
BigRedBat | 22 May 2012 6:03 a.m. PST |
There is a pale green tunic on one of the Macedonian stelae in the Secunda Seleucid book. Simon |
Crumple | 22 May 2012 7:01 a.m. PST |
Deep blues were expensive ( indigo from India ) AFAIK so not sure if they would use it to make green . The other blues faded quite quickly so the shade of green would get lighter/yellower over time . |
Martin Rapier | 22 May 2012 8:28 a.m. PST |
I think the main thing is to avoid very bright colours, so faded reddish, blueish, greenish (as well as white/off white etc.) |
Delbruck | 22 May 2012 8:49 a.m. PST |
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Delbruck | 22 May 2012 8:52 a.m. PST |
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Delbruck | 22 May 2012 8:56 a.m. PST |
Mostly Persians (and naked Greeks):
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Delbruck | 22 May 2012 8:58 a.m. PST |
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Delbruck | 22 May 2012 9:01 a.m. PST |
Athena:
Yellow (ochre?) seems to be the most popular color. |
Delbruck | 22 May 2012 9:05 a.m. PST |
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darthfozzywig | 22 May 2012 9:12 a.m. PST |
Woah, that Scythian has a great bodysuit. That's better than Eldar Harlequins. Now, please paint up an army of those. ;) |
Delbruck | 22 May 2012 9:16 a.m. PST |
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RelliK | 22 May 2012 2:05 p.m. PST |
PINK!!! Is popular too, from what I gather!!! |
wargame insomniac | 22 May 2012 2:31 p.m. PST |
I like the idea of pink Macedonians. We don't get many opportunities to paint historical wargames figures in such bright hues. I have seen a couple of Aventine's lovely Phalanx painted up in pink, including Craig's, and they do look great. Cheers James |
RelliK | 22 May 2012 2:45 p.m. PST |
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Mithridates | 22 May 2012 6:01 p.m. PST |
Going back to my WRG source book it notes colours were rarely uniform and included – red/crimson, terracotta, brown, grey, black, green (included something called "frog-colour" and something akin to the colour of an unripe grape) and saffron yellow. Blue was uncommon and tunics had bands of embroidery at the hem and sometimes all over. |
TKindred | 22 May 2012 10:15 p.m. PST |
The big thing to keep in mind is that there was no control of shade/hue from one dye batch to the next. It was that way up until the advent of modern dyes and computer assists. There are just so many factors that have an effect on any natural dye. The type of wool used, the amount of lanolin in the wool, the mineral content of the water, the type of vessel (iron, copper, brass, clay) used, and that is BEFORE you introduce the actual dye! So the best any dye maker could hope for is something close to the last batch. Thus, the concept of uniform as WE know it was alien to our ancient brethren. Red could mean any one of a number of shades, and the same with green and yellow. Also, the exposure to the elements would begin to fade the color quite a bit, even within a couple weeks, especially in a bright and sunny area. The only way to get some sort of control over the color that would last was with material dyed in the thread, and then woven, but even then it was only marginally better than cloth dyed. I suspect that a lot of the poorer sorts, even maybe a lot of the middle class, still had natural, undyed tunics for work and war, leaving the colored stuff (if they had it) for special occasions. |
Keraunos | 22 May 2012 11:41 p.m. PST |
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spontoon | 15 Jul 2012 9:51 a.m. PST |
Sounds like the Napoleonic's board's endless debate over the exact shade of Gosling Green! Well, I've been observing goslings this spring and they're more of a Kakhi shade. The stuff that comes out of them is a fairly bright green though! For wool, just think of all the colours a sheep comes in. Unbleached linen is a grey brown colour. Walnut husks produce a dark balck stain that fades to green. Oh, and for the ACW inclined, butternuts don't produce that brown colour ( which comes from iron oxide) but a medium grey stain. |
JJartist | 15 Jul 2012 10:28 p.m. PST |
I can't believe I never saw this post
Anyway, it's best to start with actual art by actual artists depicting actual Macedonians
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ether drake | 16 Jul 2012 1:43 a.m. PST |
Lovely picture. Those two figures on the left, are they really wearing purple linothorax? I thought purple was prohibitively expensive at that time. Unless they represent elite warriors. |
piper909 | 18 Jul 2012 10:14 p.m. PST |
I am a believer in contemporary sources, but still, with a grain of salt. Decorative paintings in the ancient world may have been no more meant to convey real-world color schemes than comic books or advertisements are today. If a craftsman in 200 BC could only get four colors of paint for his temple portico or whatever, I'm sure he did the best he could and didn't concern himself much about how realistic or lifelike the final result was, any more than primitive color printing in modern books or public building murals is. Plus, ancient artworks that survive are very old. Might have faded, just? PS: that Scythian uniform is totally outasight and groovy, man! |
Grandviewroad | 29 Jul 2012 10:55 a.m. PST |
I have an entire army of 5,000 6mm skythians painted just like that. NOT!
Informative thread. I think the best approach is one I heard on a painting thread. If you're painting up a unit, and there is no uniformity, then paint in a palette of colors, proportionately, and thin the paint a little more each time to "fade" the color.
So if I'm painting up 24 Hoplites, I might do 6 red, 6 green, 6 ochre and 6 in linen colors. I'd paint the 6 red together, with the first being darkest, the next a little lighter, and so on, as I thin the paint on the palette. It's easy and gives some variety while keeping the tones similar. It's a tough decision to make as to a hoplite's wealth, as just owning the stuff meant you were some sort of "middle class" citizen, so you should've had a couple of tunics. But would you wear them to fight in? Perhaps a mercenary contingent would look cheaper than citizens, they drink more of their pay away, or spend it on doxies. ;) Overall, depict the army in a way that makes sense given the period. The generals have better and fancier clothing, the hoplites less so, the missile troops are a bit cheaper and simpler dressed. Gives the army internal cohesiveness, and it looks good on the table, too. |
MadDrMark | 29 Jul 2012 2:25 p.m. PST |
Today, NPR ran a story about how we perceive color, and it began with Wm. Gladstone's observation in the 19th century that Homer never mentioned the color blue once. Apparently, "blue" was not a category of color classification for the early Greeks. I'm not sure it explains the lack of blue tunics, but the discussion was a fascinating tangent to a point raised above. Anyhow, here's the link (the whole story is about 20 minutes long, but the part on the ancient world is in the first five minutes): link |
Grandviewroad | 30 Jul 2012 1:04 p.m. PST |
I guess I'm wondering how they know he didn't use a term for the color blue that they think means something else? What about the blue sky? Blue eyes? Strange. Not something I'll be able to recall from my reading of the Odyssey in school. |
MadDrMark | 30 Jul 2012 4:10 p.m. PST |
Homer does not describe the sky as being a certain shade, except for the dawn, which is "rosy-fingered." And the phrase which set Gladstone on his study is the rather unusual term "the wine-dark sea." Anyhow, the story explains how people who are raised without assigning a color to the sky, even though they know and use the concept "blue," have a hard time assigning a color value to the sky. Instead, they see it as a void. Interesting stuff, if off topic. |
Grandviewroad | 30 Jul 2012 6:51 p.m. PST |
So in essence, Homer (and perhaps his people) viewed blue as the norm color that didn't need to be named? Interesting. It may be on topic – after all, it may express their attitude to blue, which has been mentioned several times. |
Grandviewroad | 30 Jul 2012 7:09 p.m. PST |
OK, so to summarize (since I'm on to this painting next): WRG: Going back to my WRG source book it notes colours were rarely uniform and included – red/crimson, terracotta, brown, grey, black, green (included something called "frog-colour" and something akin to the colour of an unripe grape) and saffron yellow. Blue was uncommon and tunics had bands of embroidery at the hem and sometimes all over. For wool, just think of all the colours a sheep comes in. Unbleached linen is a grey brown colour. Walnut husks produce a dark balck stain that fades to green. I would have thought that a combination of yellow and blue dye stuff could be used to produces a variety of greens. Woad is used throughout the ancient period to produce blues and was well known in the classical world as it originates in the near east. Yellows are an easy dye to produce onion skins and a number of other plants can produce it. So a combination of the two could create a green (albeit probably pretty dull). Reds are one of the commonest natural dyes so should be available too. Linen and wools in natural tones would be commonest I would expect especially for subsistence farming cultures providing levies. For the upper classes bleached white linen and for the richest purple either in strips on the edges or for the elite entire garments. Try searching on natural dyes on Google there is a good deal of useful stuff to be found. So here's what I'm thinking: Hoplite Tunics: up to half in natural cloth colors of linen or wool – so we're talking creamy white to brown-grey. Red next most common, maybe about a quarter, but a faded roman red rather than a bright vibrant crimson. Ochre / yellow also common perhaps equal to reds. Least common variable shades of green and light blues, might just be a few figs in the line. For big shot heroes and generals, blues and purples. Generall speaking, some sort of decorative hem, possibly embroidery for the wealthier guys. I guess for Spartans, red tunics, but not uniform colors as they wore them until they fell apart, apparently, and didn't wash them either. |