Dark Ages Color Palettes

I've been noodling the idea of starting the Dark Ages / Norman Conquest / Normans in Italy / 1st Crusade period, but since it's on the back burner I'm taking my time and planning out how I want to tackle Yet Another Period. I read some really good posts on Model Dad's blog about dark ages dying techniques and color schemes. Using that as a base, I've decided to work out the color schemes for the various armies I might be painting up for my 10th - 12th century Normans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. This is a pretty massive post where I go into historic dyes, hobby paint equivelants, color schemes, and samples. All this and more after the jump.

Fabric Colors of the Anglo Saxon World

I've just started researching Dark Ages color schemes, but I've found Jenny Dean's website a great resource (thanks to Model Dad for pointing me there). Jenny has a number of posts dedicated to Anglo Saxon dying techniques. Along with descriptions of her dying methods and examples of her experimental results, she also drops cool tidbits like this:

"The analysis of dyes in textiles of the early Anglo-Saxon period seems to indicate that reds, like purples, were mainly used for narrow woven bands, headdresses, embroideries and accessories, such  bags, rather than for larger fabrics. Where dyes were used in larger fabrics (and dyes were detected in only one-third of the larger fabrics analysed) these were mainly dyes that give shades of yellow, blue and brown, plus green from blue and yellow dyes used in combination. It is also possible that, at least in the early Anglo-Saxon period, reds and purples were colours reserved for people of high status."

Ms. Dean seems pretty reliable regarding natural dying techniques of early Britain, so I'm going to assume her description of colors and their frequency in the archeological record is accurate. This gives me a good place to start for planning out color schemes (dyed textile images from Jenny Dean's site).

Common Colors(60% of cloth) Undyed Fabric in Off-white, Gray, Tan, and Brown

Uncommon Colors (30% of cloth) Yellow, Blue, Brown, and Green

Rare Colors (10% of cloth) Red, Purple

I had read a bit of wargamer wisdom that said the color green was not available as a dye color during the dark ages, but based on the examples above I feel confident that nearly every color of the rainbow could be produced during the 11th and 12th centuries, and only the saturation and frequency of various shades need to be adjusted on our figures to recreate accurate clothing.

Historically Accurate Hobby Paints

With these Anglo Saxon color samples as my guide, I've tried to find suitable color matches in the Vallejo and Games Workshops line of paints. I'm working from images from the web, and comparing them to the paint samples from the two manufacturers, so I can't promise an exact correlation, but hopefully it's good enough for the tabletop. The Games Workshop colors appear to be more vibrant on the whole, so many of these GW colors would probably need to be desaturated by adding some white or brown to the shade.

Sample	Vallejo	Games Workshop
Common Colors
	883 Silver Gray	Rakarth Flesh
	918 Ivory	Ushabti Bone
	837 Sand Light	Karak Stone
	916 Sand Yellow	Zamezi Desert
	877 Goldbrown	Balor Brown
	876 Brown Sand	Mournfang Brown
Uncommon Colors
	953 Flat Yellow	Tau Light Ochre
	915 Deep Yellow	Yriel Yellow
	961 Olive Green	Loren Forest
	833 German Camouflage	Caliban Greent
	907 Pale Greyblue	Celestra Gray
	963 Medium Blue	Kantor Blue
Rare Colors
	959 Purple	Xereus Purple
	817 Scarlet	Wazdaka Red
	911 Light Orange	Jokaero Orange

Creating Color Palettes for Dark Ages Armies

Now that I've narrowed down the colors I'll be using for my dark ages figures, I've combined them into a few color palettes.  Although information about warfare during this time is limited, it's unlikely vikings, normans and anglo saxons adhered to any sort of uniform, each man providing his own gear, painted and dyed to his own taste.

On the wargame table though, I find treating each figure as an individual turns the board into a visual mess. My goal was to create a color palette for each army that would visually tie them together, without implying that they were wearing uniforms or livery. I wanted these color palettes to be fairly generic so I could assign them to armies at a later date, so I've gone with four simple color themes based on the seasons of the year.

The common colors will appear most prevalently within each army. One or two uncommon colors may appear as well, with the rare complimentary colors reserved for decorative items and borders on elite figures.

Winter

883 Silver Gray	918 Ivory	907 Pale Greyblue	963 Medium Blue	916 Sand Yellow
Rakarth Flesh	Ushabti Bone	Celestra Gray	Kantor Blue	Zamezi Desert

Spring

918 Ivory	837 Sand Light	915 Deep Yellow	961 Olive Green	959 Purple
Ushabti Bone	Karak Stone	Yriel Yellow	Loren Forest	Xereus Purple

Summer

916 Sand Yellow	918 Ivory	961 Olive Green	833 German Camouflage	817 Scarlet
Zamezi Desert	Ushabti Bone	Loren Forest	Caliban Greent	Wazdaka Red

Autumn

877 Goldbrown	918 Ivory	876 Brown Sand	953 Flat Yellow	911 Light Orange	817 Scarlet
Balor Brown	Ushabti Bone	Mournfang Brown	Tau Light Ochre	Jokaero Orange	Wazdaka Red

Painted Examples of Viking Bondi

I'm hoping to start playing SAGA this winter starting with viking and norman warbands. I painted up a few 28mm bondi from Wargames Factory's "Vikings" as samples to see if this technique would work.  When I think of vikings one of the first images that comes to mind is the viking longship with its striking red and white striped sail. 

I decided to assign my autumn color scheme to any vikings I paint up, with particular emphasis on ivory and a rusty red color. The bondi were viking farmers, and unlike the more heavily armored huscarls, the bondi are wearing simple tunics and breeches providing a good range of fabrics to paint up. As lower class warriors, they shouldn't have a large amount of the rare red fabric, but I made sure to include at least one bit of red on each. A red cap on one, but only a simple belt or pouch on the others with some red being incorporated into the simple geometric designs of their shields. I also included a bit of ivory in various tunic borders as well, using the two "team colors" to tie the whole army together.

Viking bondi from Wargames Factory

I still need to paint up more vikings and some opposing normans in a different color scheme, but already I'm happy with the result. By forcing myself to limit the color palette and pay attention to how I could incorporate the ivory and rust red colors I think the end result should appear suitably archaic but with enough pops of color to add visual interest to the game.

Buying Dark Age Vallejo Paints Online 

The paints above are available from your FLGS, but my FLGS is pretty lackluster and constantly seem to be out of stock. I tend to order more frequently from Amazon and The War Store and a number of the paints mentioned above are available there:

918 Ivory	Vallejo Model Colors: Ivory #5
883 Silver Gray	Silver Grey
916 Sand Yellow	Sand Yellow
877 Goldbrown	Vallejo Model Colors: GoldBrown #126
876 Brown Sand	Brown Sand
963 Medium Blue	Vallejo Model Colors: Medium Blue #57
953 Flat Yellow	Flat Yellow
961 Olive Green	Vallejo Model Colors: Olive Green #82
817 Scarlet	Scarlet
959 Purple	Purple
911 Light Orange	Vallejo Model Colors: Light Orange #22

There are also a few paint sets that offer a good place to start if you need to pick up more than a few bottles of paint to add to your collection.

Panzer Aces Wood & Leather
The Vallejo Wood and Leather set contains a variety of earth tones, a great place to start for the common colors that appear in dark age armies.

The Vallejo Earth Tones set  looks like it provides a good initial set of muted natural colors too.

Amazon's Vallejo Game Colors Paint Set: Undead
The War Store's Vallejo Game Colors Paint Set: Undead
The undead set comes with a metallic silver and bronze, white and black as well as a shade of red, parchment, purple and violet. Along with a few individual bottles of earth tones, this seems like a good basis for a generic dark ages color palette.