Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cruising dangerous waters: gris-blanc

I didn't have time to work on more comparisons among miniatures tonight, but at least I was able to get some painting on the WSS French I received yesterday from Minifigs. Of course, when we are discussing French uniforms from the XVIII century, it is impossible to escape the never-ending controversy about what is their "gris blanc" color. There are at least four threads on the topic on TMP, and some more in the yahoo groups for the "Seven Years War" and "Lace Wars."
At the end of the day, my take from all those exchanges is the following: it doesn't matter. If it looks good to me, it's good enough - after all, it is my lead being pushed on my table, and if you have a problem with it, stay at your home! But since these miniatures need to be painted, one way or another, I had to pic some bottles from the Vallejo box...
Here's how I proceeded. Gris-blanc is not really grey; but it is not white, either. It looks a pearlish off white when compared to bright white, but it looks white when compared to anything else. I then put on my palette some white, and just a minimal drop of a grey; at the end, I will "miracle dip" the miniatures with the more brownish Minwax Polyshade ("Antique Walnut Satin".) Hopefully, the final effect will be somewhat off-white, between grey-ish and cream. For the time being, here's how these infantrymen look at this stage of production.

Some work continues also on the Prussian fussiliers, but nothing worth reporting with a picture yet. Finally, I also dip the brush into some ground color for the mythical windmill... here, in exclusive, a preview for your eyes' only!

3 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

For "gris-blanc" I use a variety of light grays and off-whites.

I personally like to use slightly different colors for each battalion . . . thus making them more easily distinguished from one another.

My take is that essentially it was probably more-or-less dependent upon the mix of wool used for the coats anyway.

However I would have absolutely no problem with an opponent who chose to do them whatever way he chose.

So paint them however you like them . . . and most gamers will be quite happy to face them without worrying what exact shade they are (and no one really knows for sure anyway).

I look forward to seeing the finished result.


-- Jeff

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Adik - for what it's worth I think you have hit the nail on the head with the choice you went for when depicting "gris-blanc".

When I paint French I use the lightest grey I can find, but I give it a very dilute wash of black ink afterwards.....

Anonymous said...

i love it! you've got mad skills!