Slitherine

Hi All,

Despite V2, I'm still going to use this as a valuable resource for discussing painting. I think it's one of the better sites for this.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has a decent resource on history of dyes.

By that I mean some Dyes (indigo for example) have a long history, whilst others (neon pink for example) haven't. So, I tend to go toward earthy colours and have kept away from some colours that may actually be moderately historically accurate because I believe (probably wrongly) that we wouldn't have had access to those colours in that point in history.

Any help appreciated.

Roman Military Dress covers quite a bit of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Military-Dr ... roman_14ry

ancient colors could be quite bright, until it rains...

there are a lot of SCA & reenactor resources on the internet on cloth dyeing & colors.

http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/dyeing.html
http://www.herbsociety-stu.org/Dyeing.htm
http://fibers.destinyslobster.com/Dyeing/dyehistory.htm

stecal wrote:Roman Military Dress covers quite a bit of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Military-Dr ... roman_14ry

ancient colors could be quite bright, until it rains...

there are a lot of SCA & reenactor resources on the internet on cloth dyeing & colors.

http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/dyeing.html
http://www.herbsociety-stu.org/Dyeing.htm
http://fibers.destinyslobster.com/Dyeing/dyehistory.htm

Thanks

In Ancient Warfare IV.6 you have some hints for the Hellenistic world. (Hellenistic) Elite units were a complete different world and there was a more colourful display. Some generals are quoted of spending sometime selecting their armies costumes.

http://www.ancient-warfare.com/cms/issu ... -iv-6.html

I tend to go for wool colours, thus variations of white with a little bit of ochre or grey, so that they don't look too bright. For elite units I go for brighter colours. Everytime I tend to use some within unit variation. I use terracota (or terracota + red) too from time to time instead of red (too bright). In another forum I read a similar debate and there was an interesting suggestion when using one colour: that was to have different tones in different miniatures to show the hand made dyes and consequent variations among fabricants. Probably you will be the only one to know, but adds an extra to the whole unit and it is quite self rewarding.

Strategos69 wrote:In another forum I read a similar debate and there was an interesting suggestion when using one colour: that was to have different tones in different miniatures to show the hand made dyes and consequent variations among fabricants. Probably you will be the only one to know, but adds an extra to the whole unit and it is quite self rewarding.

I did this with my 'red' for the 'Redcoats' of my Peninsular British army. The lightest being a dark pink and the darkest being almost brown. Trouble is that you go to a great deal of effort and, as you said, probably I'm the only one tho notices .