English Longbowmen

ravenflight · Post by **ravenflight** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:31 pm

My first finished BG of English Longbowmen. Unbased, and not the worlds greatest photography, but here they are regardless

http://imageshack.us/f/17/picture473l.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/f/822/picture473v.jpg/

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:05 pm

Nice.

I have one question and it is a question not a criticism, as I struggle with this.

Why did you paint the bows yellowish? I often struggle with what color to paint "wood" as it is not necessarily brown...

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:16 pm

I'd guess because it is the colour often seen in period depictions - I note he has also painted the 2 different colours representing the different parts of the wood.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:29 pm

Bananas came to mind.

Yellow shades for wood looks better and more realistic from a distance. The photos are too close up.

Brown is too dark in reality

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:50 pm

philqw78 wrote:Bananas came to mind.

Yellow shades for wood looks better and more realistic from a distance. The photos are too close up.

Brown is too dark in reality

Yeah, I have gravitated to a lighter yellow-brown, but always curious as to what people do and why they choose it.

ravenflight · Post by **ravenflight** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:21 pm

ethan wrote:Nice.

I have one question and it is a question not a criticism, as I struggle with this.

Why did you paint the bows yellowish? I often struggle with what color to paint "wood" as it is not necessarily brown...

What Nik said is true. I've gone with the two shades of brown. It is a light brown that comes off as 'yellowish' in the picture. I googled 'Longbow' to get the shades I used. You're (or I) an quite lucky I didn't paint them olive drab.

ravenflight · Post by **ravenflight** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:54 pm

Ethan,

Another point to your 'wood' comment. I agree that I struggle with 'what to paint wood'. I find things like 'chariots and carts' the most difficult.

When driving around town etc you see a lot of weathered wood. Telegraph poles, fences, etc. Unless they are painted and/or lacquered they are dark grey.

So, if you paint your carts (at least) and maybe your Chariots (if you believe that they weren't waxed or whatever) grey, they are probably accurate but look odd on the wargames table.

It's a struggle.

I believe that we have to sometimes 'go with convention' rather than what is accurate.

I think the bows will look ok en-mass and with the naked eyes

.

We'll see.

Thanks for the comments all...

madcam2us · Post by **madcam2us** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 1:09 pm

I paint my longbows a khaki color.... Looks good for "aged" wood....

Madcam.

stecal · Post by **stecal** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 2:52 pm

A yellowy color would indicate that it was protected with some sort of varnish or shellac, but then again many wood finishes darken the wood or it may have been fire hardened. Apparently many bows were painted red or white as well. Most "antique" paints would have been made up of some sort of pigment & an oil like linseed, which is effectively a varnish. In almost all cases some sort of protective coating must have been applied to bows made of wood, glue, sinew & horn or they would quickly warp and come undone

Jilu · Post by **Jilu** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:52 pm

well look at reenactment bows...

ans well i suspect bows would not be made of seasoned wood the color depends on the ash wood..the color from light tan to light yellow there is NO same color for every bow in an army

what we forget is that bows do break...i have seen several break during reenactments so they would have some in supply

ravenflight · Post by **ravenflight** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:20 pm

Jilu wrote:ans well i suspect bows would not be made of seasoned wood the color depends on the ash wood..the color from light tan to light yellow there is NO same color for every bow in an army

Sure, I accept that, but I'm not going to paint 35 different shades of light brown for authenticity. I once did something similar in my peninsular British. All the red coats varied from darker red to almost pink being the difference between new recruits just issued their uniforms to veterans. Looks ok if you stare at it, but the variation gets lost in the mass of troops, so isn't wirth the effort IMHO.