The Next Project - The Great War in Greyscale

Belgian Refugees Fleeing the Front, 1914

Well, I think it's time for a change. Except for a few small diversions I've been concentrating on 28mm Napoleonics for almost two years now and while it's my first love, and I know I'll keep adding to the collection, I need a to follow a new drumbeat for a while.

So with this in mind I've been spending the past few months gathering inspiration; casting my eye around, reading books, watching films and documentaries, and most of all following blogs from other hobbyists. From all this, one period keeps coming back to me time and again - the Great War.
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To me the Great War resonates in several ways. As a Canadian, the Great War is where my country was first recognized as a distinct nation and not merely a colony of Great Britain. Like many of the combatant forces we paid heavily for our participation in the war. Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Somme, Amiens, Cambrai - all are names which are frequently inscribed on cenotaphs across Canada - in both large cities and small hamlets, from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Also, in my day-to-day work, I am frequently involved in assisting researchers, creating exhibits and participating in commemorative activities pertaining to the Great War - so there is certainly a professional interest. Finally, on a personal level, I have several family members who served on both sides of the conflict, both on land and sea, and their involvement strikes a deep cord within me.

There are several hobbyists who have done remarkable work within the Great War period but there is one that deserves special mention. Sidney Roundwood's fabulous collection of miniatures and terrain capture both the pathos and the horror of the late war on the Western Front and I think the composition and colour palette of his miniatures are remarkable and exhibit a very distinct and evocative style.

A sample of Sidney Roundwood's excellent WWI collection.

So after some consideration I decided that I wanted to attempt a very stylized approach to the project. I want to test myself and so made up my mind to compose the project entirely in black and white, or more precisely a form of greyscale called 'Chiaroscuro'.

Ok, what is 'chiaroscuro' and why in heaven's name would I want to do this?

Chiaroscuro is an old art term originating from the Renaissance period. In Italian it literally means 'light-dark'. It is a high-contrast effect that is used to define the subject in order to provide drama and weight. Frequently artists will use a single colour to draw attention to specific aspects of the composition. A few contemporary examples of the chiaroscuro effect are the films 'Schindler's List', 'Renaissance' and 'Sin City'.

So, why do this? Well, I've seen similar effects done very well in other projects where the starkness of light and shadow play well to the theme of the subject. Vikotnik's monochrome Nosferatu game and Carmen's  black and white pulp gangsters are great examples. 

With this in mind I thought that since our collective memory of the Great War is largely dominated by black and white imagery it may be interesting to portray its miniature version using a similar greyscale palette.  I also think there is a certain cold, dehumanizing starkness to greyscale that may suit the mood of the Western Front. At the very least it should be an interesting exercise!

So, with the entire colour spectrum being reduced to shades of grey I knew I had to be very systematic with my paint selection. After bit of deliberation and testing I decided to use a tonal range consisting of ten distinct shades, extending from pure white to deep black. 

My 'colour' range for the entire project. Yikes!

Within this range I established four cool grey tones (with a blue base) and four warm tones (using a brown base). This way I can play around with replicating skin, fabrics and metals.

A notebook logging my selected greys from light to dark.

One would think that this would be a relatively simple and straighforward exercise but its actually quite challenging as I have had to find an equivalent grey for each colour tone that I normally would just have a pot of paint for. I soon realized that I needed to keep a notebook keeping track of my 'map' of equivalent greys so I could refer back later to decipher particular mixes.

Beginning to keep track of colour-to-greyscale equivaltents...

Of course, as things would have it, I decided I wanted to embark on this just before our vacation. Not to be deterred, I mocked up a 'hobby travel kit' so I could work on some test figures while we were away. Below is the case I've been using during our travels. It works quite well as the paint bottles fit upright, I have a separate long compartment for my brushes and tools and it allows me to carry around 30 figures in the padded compartments. As you can imagine my wife looks at this, smiles indulgently, all the while thinking that I'm a little 'touched'...

Anyway, I've been beavering away on a selection of 28mm castings from Great War Miniatures. I'm wanting to do some of the encounter battles of early 1914 so I thought I'd do something a little off the beaten path and concentrate on the Belgian and French armies of that period. So below are a few Belgian 'test' models painted in my interpreted greyscale palette.

Test of Concept: Early War Belgian Infantry Skirmishing

My plan is to have all the rank and file in pure greyscale, but the NCOs and officers will have the chiaroscuro effect of a selected defining colour picked out. Finally, the dead will be painted in full colour (or perhaps their wounds) which should provide a dramatic (and hopefully sobering) contrast to the planned monochrome background.

The NCOs and officers will be popped off the steel shims and mounted on hexagonal bases for better identification  - a great idea of Sidney's!

All of these NCOs still need to have muted colour highlights applied, such as red cap bands and collar tabs for these Belgian fellows.

As an example of my interpretation of the chiarascuro effect, the French officer below has his trousers and kepi in a muted red. I'm still debating whether to do the colour in vibrant tones or keep it muted like what is shown here (I used a heavily diluted chestnut ink over grey for this). I'll have to try both to get a better impression.

This was one of my first efforts which I managed to get done at home.

Finally, as a counterpoint, here is a German infantryman in an early war uninform. You can see I've used a 'stone' grey with a brown base to accentuate his tunic.

Again, this was an early model done before we left - the colour background is a little jarring with the greyscale figure.

Here he is in a more monochrome setting.

So there you have it - my new project, well in theory anyway. I imagine the figures will go relatively quickly but the terrain will take more time. It too will be done in greyscale, but I'm thinking of having aspects of it in muted colours (shell holes with green pools of water, red rusted wire, etc.). We'll see how it works out.

Please check back over the coming months to see how I'm progressing. And any comments or ideas are encouraged and, well, encouraging! 


UPDATE:

Its been a few months since I began this project and I thought I'd use the space below to place a few images of how its been moving along. (If you're interested, you can poke around the blog and find more images and descriptions of each of these.)

Belgian Carabiniers with their Dogs and Carts, 1914

Belgian Machine Gun Dog Carts

Belgian 'Minerva' Armoured Car

Early War Germans

Early War French 'Poilu' 

Early War British, 'The Old Contemptibles'

A Sniper amongst the Dead

Taxi de la Marne

Early War Highlanders

British Despatch Rider