Search the Community

I have never painted tabletop armies. Would it be okay to paint them not uniformly, but still recognizably on the same side? I have contemplated painting up some historical army figures. In my experience between the vagaries of natural dyes, sun fading, washing or not washing, and luck, not one soldier is likely to have had a uniform whose colors were exactly identical to any others' (at least before the twentieth century, and maybe not even then if Bill Mauldin is anything to go by). I see painters agonizing to remember what colors they used so all their soldiers will match, and I remember how dramatically differently different dye lots can color fabrics. I think a close-but-not-matching color might make an army look more realistic, not less. On the other hand, as I have said, I have never painted a tabletop army, and I might be being fussy or making things too complicated. May I ask experienced army painters their opinions of the wisdom and sanity of this idea?