ECW Dragoons

[Leman (Andy)]

I really like the shading effect on the drum.

[Westie]

I've just trawled through a good chunk of the BCWProject site on civil war dragoon units (BCW Regimental Wiki) and only found one unit where they were able to describe the coat colour - but even then, it stated, "blue or red!" 

[Radar]

I do like the way that drums take a wash. One of the reasons there is an increasing number of drummers on my baggage train bases.

The BCW website is an excellent source of information, in particular the regimental wiki. Sadly most observers didn't report coat colours, and only occasionally flags. The best evidence we have are the records of spies - there was a big London muster which was reported (which explains why we know about the London Trained bands standards), and a report on a muster at Oxford (lots of white coated, and blue coated regiments). There are quite a few conventions which can be applied if in doubt - a lot of white and grey coats in Newcastle's northern army, Eastern Association lots of red coats.

So lots of best guesses, and none standard issue equipment. Would be a nightmare for a Napoleonic obsessive.

[Leslie BT]

We are always to precious about our colours.

The colours of years ago particularly this period would have all been based on natural dyes so what today is called green would have been avery different colour the the green of our colour palettes.
We use in our modern paints and dyes all manufactured pigments.
This is an extract as to how dificult it was to make green. It would have been very poorly fixed and after being out in the weather most of the mans clothing would have been green with leached colour. So the man in new kit on a dry day would look very different to a seasoned campaigner.

If plants that yield yellow dyes are common, plants that yield green dyes are rare. Both woad and indigo have been used since ancient times in combination with yellow dyes to produce shades of green. Medieval and Early Modern England was especially known for its green dyes. The dyers of Lincoln, a great cloth town in the high Middle Ages, produced the Lincoln green cloth associated with Robin Hood by dyeing wool with woad and then overdyeing it yellow with weld or dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria), also known as dyer's broom. Woolen cloth mordanted with alum and dyed yellow with dyer's greenweed was overdyed with woad and, later, indigo, to produce the once-famous Kendal green. This in turn fell out of fashion in the 18th century in favor of the brighter Saxon green, dyed with indigo and fustic.

Soft olive greens are also achieved when textiles dyed yellow are treated with an iron mordant. The dull green cloth common to the Iron Age Halstatt culture shows traces of iron, and was possibly colored by boiling yellow-dyed cloth in an iron pot. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau in North America used lichen to dye corn husk bags a sea green.

Navajo textile artist Nonabah Gorman Bryan developed a two-step process for creating green dye. First the Churro wool yarn is dyed yellow with sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, and then it is soaked in black dye afterbirth. Red onion skins are also used by Navajo dyers to produce green.

[Radar]

Good info Leslie, thanks.

(Although the bit about 'black afterbirth' sounds a bit unpleasant).

I've used picking a colour palette as an excuse to visit art galleries looking at Renaissance paintings. Apparently Dutch paintings are a good indicator of colours used in Britain (similar dye sources and fashion)

[Smiley Miley 66]

Very good info there Les. Gives food for thought on how to paint some of the accepted colours with a hint of a bleached look about them me thinks.... so no strong colours unless they are officers and maybe Sargents etc.

[Radar]

Some of those olden days ECW dragoons from the House of Pig, with paint conversion command stands

Earl of Manchester's Regiment of Dragoons usual nonsense at https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/04/earl-of-manchesters-regiment-of-dragoons.html

[Radar]

Some more 'old' dragoons with kit bashed command stands

Wardlaw's RoD, usual history etc https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/05/colonel-wardlaws-regiment-of-dragoons.html