Canadian Battledress colour WWII

[ChaosCossack]

I have a question re how to deal with Canadian Battledress colour, painting with Vallajo acrylics. I've done some digging and have found some pics of tunics and pants as well as some decent text explainations. Canadian battle dress was made from the British design but the shade of khaki had a more green tinge than the British khaki.

So far I've mixed a base colour that has matched up to the material colour almost 99% dead on. I mixed up a batch using a 6:1 mix of English Uniform and Flat Green. What I'm not sure of now is what colours to add to the base to get highlights and shadow.
For highs I concidered adding to the base:
-more English Uniform
or
-Khaki Grey
or
-beige brown and light olive green

For shadows I thought:
-Matt brown and Flat Green
or (darker)
-Burnt Umber and Deep Green

I may be way off base (mind you I haven't tried any of these yet). I'm hoping someone out there might be able to point me in the right direction.

Help!

Colin

 

[Richie]

Hi Colin,
You could try yellow ochre with a touch of something like sap green mixed in various shades for the khaki.
cheers
Richie

 

[ChaosCossack]

Sounds right Richie. That's close to khaki grey. Which way do I go for shading though? I don't want to go too brown or too green.
Colin

 

[Richie]

Sounds right Richie. That's close to khaki grey. Which way do I go for shading though? I don't want to go too brown or too green.
Colin

Hi Colin,
On a piece of paper as a test with your Khaki mix why don't you try a shading with the base plus a shade of purple/violet, for highlights add a yellow/buff shade!
cheers
Richie

 

[ChaosCossack]

Really? Violet?
See, that's why I threw this one out here 'cause I never would have thought of that

I'll give it a shot

Thanx

Colin

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Colin - I usually highlight my WWI khaki with light flesh mixed sparingly into the base (which makes sense as I base it on a mix of mdm fesh and english tankcrew - a greenish shade). I would still use flesh to highlight a green khaki as I also use it for highlighting navy, black etc. For deep shadows on a green khaki I would likely go dark green (adding in dk blue) or sepia...perhaps even dk purple for deep crevasses. Keep in mind that I breach the colour theory rules all the time but it generally turns out OK.

Good Luck.

Colin

edit - I didn't read the posts above when I addded mine but I see Richie and I are aligned on purple - great minds.

 

[Richie]

Really? Violet?
See, that's why I threw this one out here 'cause I never would have thought of that

I'll give it a shot

Thanx

Colin

Hi Colin,
It might give you a nice darker shade that is not too brown or green. Let me know how you get on mate
cheers
Richie

 

[ChaosCossack]

Thanx Guys
Never thought of the blue either.
I do use sunny skin tone to highlight my Chasseur green mix... so that might work on this too. I was thinking Deep Green and Burnt Umber to shade but in hindsight it might become a bit muddy.
I'm gonna have to experiment a bit before I commit it to the project. The base colour is dead on, if I may say so myself but I got stuck at modifying it. My colour theory is novice at best

Quickly! Off to the pallette-mobile, Boy Wonder!

Monochromatic Colin

 

[Ray Welshman]

Colin,

I've used (believe it or not) Delta Crème Coat Timberline green. To highlight I've added different levels of yellow Ochre and shading add raw umber (all of the same line). These are craft paints but they have a lot of pigment and dry to a flat finish. I've found I have to thin them a lot with distilled water. Any other water seems to leave a residue. I personally don't think they are good for painting faces and other flesh tones but good for clothing and such. I'm at work now but will upload a 120mm Queens Own Rifle WWII D Day I did several years ago. Also In my gallery there is a Canadian Para where I did the trousers with the same mix.

Cheers

Ray

 

[ChaosCossack]

Thanx Ray

More food for thought. There's going to be alot of testing before I decide on how to deal with this on the actual project

Cheers
Colin

 

[Ray Welshman]

NP Colin,

I actually found the images on my PC for my Queens Own and uploaded to my gallery.

Cheers

Ray