Painting a viking army

[Daniele]

Meanwhile my last order is on the road and I'm waiting to receive my so much wanted (and so long time waited) vikings miniatures, does anyone can suggest me any source to be inspired for historically painting them?
I would like to avoid that grey/brown middle age filter used in hollywood movies and to be as much accurate as I can.
I really like the painted examples on the Dark Age miniatures page in the site.
Thank you very much
Daniele

[Colonel Kilgore]

It won't help much with the colours, but for inspiration I'd recommend Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom series.

I'm re-reading all the books at the moment, and they really are good.

There do indeed seem to have been lots of colours available at the time. I'm starting off with the duller linen, greys, browns and greens for my Levy. I'll add some more colour as I do the Unarmoured and then really go to town on the Armoured and Leaders.

I'm going for uniform colours for wood and leather, to help tie things together. I wouldn't use black, white or purple, but red, blue, orange and fairly bright green all seem to have been available.

Does that help any? And I stand to be corrected by folk more knowledgeable than me!

Simon

[Leman (Andy)]

Recently it has been thought that Dark Age clothing was more colourful than previously believed. Most dyes were plant based, although soil types could also provide some dyes. The most common would have been greens and yellows, but reds, browns and greys were also popular. Blue was a more expensive dye, but would still be seen in various shades. Purples would have been rare. Unbleached and bleached wool and linen was also used, thus ranging from white through the full spectrum of greys and browns, so creamy colours would also be seen. The last viking I painted was a chieftain. Under his armour he has a light blue grey tunic, red trousers and over all a darkish blue cloak, the dye denoting his status.

[John Watson]

Most colours would have been available. As previously said purple/mauve would be rare, usually reserved for royalty or high ranking nobles. However as dyes then were organic they tended to be less bright than modern  colours. Also they would fade towards greys and browns over time. Natural colours were common as was red in various shades. Trim would also be common.
Huscarls would be relatively wealthy and so would wear the brightest colours to display their wealth and success. They would also get the best plunder. Gold and silver adornments would be common.
Bondi would be poorer free men or liege men of huscarls. They would have fewer bright colours than huscarls and natural colours would be more common.
Skirmishers would be the poorest or youngest troops and would be poorly dressed in natural colours.
If you want more information I would recommend Osprey Men at Arms number 85 on Saxon, Viking and Normans or Armies of the Dark Ages by Ian Heath, published by the Wargames Research Group. Both are readily available in the UK.
John

[Moggy]

Could always sit down and binge watch the Last Kingdom.  Apart from an idea of the clothes its a good watch.  Slow in places but worthwhile.

Reading is good but watching is better.

Derek

[Smiley Miley 66]

Put in Natural Dyes colours from plants into Google ?
This gives you a lot of ideas as what colours would have been available to use ?
Miles

[Colonel Kilgore]

Very good, Miles!

I've seen the middle two pictures before, but the colour chart is also very interesting.

Simon

[Smiley Miley 66]

You know me, I do try and do my homework?
I ve looked into doing ancients so needed to know what colours would be acceptable to use ?
Especially now there is quite a good range of colours available!
Miles

[Daniele]

Thank you all for your interesting suggestions...

[Panzer21]

The WAB book that covered the period included painting advice: there was a suggestion of adding small amounts of flesh coloured paint to colours to get a "washed out" look for non-fast dye colours.
Neil

[simmo]

The Bayeaux tapestry is a  good source for the sorts of coloured threads about at the time.

Martyn S

[Daniele]

Ok, now it's time to have some considerations about shields.
I have three possibilities:
1)The first one is very hard and time vasting, each man has its own colours and scheme, I think it wasn't probably the case and too much difficult to achieve;
2)Each Chief has its own colours, so the idea is to paint the same shields for all the men in the same unit (i.e. five different schemes for Longships);
3) Each family has its own colours, so I should paint 7-8 miniatures with a scheme, than start with another one and so on. This implies that miniatures with different schemes may also be put on the same base, in fact there's no reasons to have the members of one family to be all levy or all armoured. Obviously each unit would be composed by the same 3-4 families, at the orders of the same chief, so no mixing colours and schemes in different units.
What do yu think about, folks?
 
Every ideas welcomed
Daniele

[Colonel Kilgore]

Daniele,

I've been having similar thoughts.

I'm doing my Saxons right now, but when I do my Vikings it's going to be a colour theme per ship / crew / unit.

I'm also going for plain shields for Levy, two paimted colours for Unarmoured and then shield transfers with nice designs for Armoured.

I'll be using Little Big Man transfers, once Victrix have sorted out their production (Victrix having recently acquired LBM).

I seem to remember Stewart having successfully used LBM transfers designed for Khurassan miniatures for his Peter Pig models - could you please confirm I have that right, Stewart?

Simon

[John Watson]

My Vikings I did in random colours. The elites and veterans had quartered colours, the trained had halved colours and the levy had single colours. This was a great idea until I realised that most of the shields would be facing my opponent!
One thing to bear in mind when painting Viking shields is that the earlier Vikings were pagans and so shield designs would be animals and birds and other non Christian symbols. Many later Vikings converted to Christianity and so the symbolism would change to crosses and so forth.
My Vikings are pagans but my Saxons (when I get round to painting) them will be Christians.
John

[martin goddard]

Vikings are a nice army to use in CK. Their problem can be opponent quality cavalry.
The veterans cannot be everywhere at the same/right time to bounce off cavalry charges.
John's veteran armoured vikings can stand their ground, so long as their flanks can hold out for long enough.

Viking armies have a wargamer "plus plus" because gamers love the ease of information and film/fiction about this army.

For myself the "Last kingdom" added to the enjoyment of these armies.

martin