27 March 2020

Revisiting the French-Indochina War in Greyscale

Has it really been five years since I've last worked on this project? Feels like yesterday really. I've never completely forgotten about the project and always intended to get back to it. But frankly I was intimidated by painting camouflage using this technique. I wasn't quite happy with my first take, but never quite could put my finger on the why. But when our beloved Over-Snowlord let me choose one of three tasks in order to claim the price for climbing SnowLord's Peak I decided to finally man up and tackle this particular problem.

Figures by Empress Miniatures



You know, being something of a pedant can become quite a challenge in itself sometimes. Initially I had planned to paint up the remaining minis in my stash for this location. But soon I realised this to be a decidedly over ambitious. Idon't know how often I re-painted these two fellows but if I'd hazard a guess they've suffered through at least five different versions of desaturated camouflage.


With the Viet-Minh I painted five years back it was rather straight forward using mainly desaturated brownish tones with some black and just a few greenish spots mixed in. It was only after much brain wracking, swearing and actually considering to give up and admit defeat that finally inspiration struck.


Most uniforms and equipment used by the French in the theatre were some hue of green. So when painting not so much real greyscale but what Curt so aptly called "desaturated" why on earth was I simpleton trying to paint desaturated greenish uniforms using brownish colours?


Once this realization sunk in it was pretty straight forward from then on. For the French it was to be desaturated greenish tones with black and a few brownish spots. At first I thought this might come out to samey in the end but using different greenish greys and light greens to lighten a base of a dark brownish green did work wonders.


So that's it from me for this years challenge. Over the next few days I hope to get a few minutes in to take a few pictures of all I painted over the last few months and finally get Michael Awdry's car for his sadly postponed Schloss Itter game as well as Jamies prize money posted.

Points wise this submission should be rather straight forward with two figures plus the location adding a final 40 points to my total bringing me to a whooping 795 points. I'd never have dreamed of reaching such dizzying heights but this challenge was a blast once again and I'm already looking forward to December for the next iteration of this madness.

A huge thank you to all the participants for making the challenge to what it is, to the Minions for their tireless efforts and of course to our beloved SnowLord and his lovely Lady for organizing, or in Sarah's case putting up with, this most enjoyable of hobby events year after year.

14 comments:

  1. Every bit as good as I remember them!

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  2. The lighting combined with the painted highlights made this come out perfect!! Awesome work and I would really like to see more!

    Christopher

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  3. Woooow! Another level of masterclass!

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  4. Brilliant. This is a period I would really like to do, I even have a squad of these figures from when they were sold by RedStar, but who knows if I'll ever have time. :)

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  5. Think this is my fav from the Challenge!

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  6. Amazing what you can do with your paint work Nick.
    cheers John

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  7. This is just a stunning piece of work Nick! I am simply in awe of what you have done here.

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  8. The effect of the color scheme is great.

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  9. Stunning as always.

    Can I ask why you didn't just paint as you would for color and then photograph in black & white?

    These are amazing, but wouldn't photographing in B&W have been easier?

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  10. ... though looking at them again, and thinking about my own question, the way you've done them is even more stunning!

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  11. I cannot even begin to imagine the effort (research and skill) required to do this "greyscale in colors" project. End results are mighty impressive. It definitely captures, in my mind, how things would have looked liked in reality.

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  12. Painting at another level Nick. As foureyedmonster pointed out above, looks like the real thing.
    Stay safe,
    Pat.

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  13. A fantastic use of... non colour Nick.

    All the best. Ay

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  14. Absolutely beautiful brushwork Nick. I'm delighted that I convinced you to provide us another set of figures from this project.

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