WWI FRENCH UNIFORM COLORS

Bleu horizon, the shade that replaced the red trousers

The French army entered the war in 1914 in a dark blue coat and bright red trousers. After the losses of the first months, the conspicuous combination was replaced by a gray-blue cloth called bleu horizon, and in it the soldiers went through Verdun and the Somme. It is exactly this look that the set of four bottles covers.

The base tone matches the cloth in ordinary wear. The lighter blue pulls out the crowns of the folds, the edges of the collar and the surfaces turned to the light, while the darker one sinks under the sleeves and into the hollows of the greatcoat. The fourth color is the brown of leather for belts, pouches, straps, holsters and boots; on a French infantryman the leather items take up a substantial part of the outline, and without them the figure looks flat.

Application

The volume of one bottle is 17 ml, the binder is acrylic and it thins with water. The procedure is usually straightforward: the base with a brush or an airbrush, a heavily thinned shadow into the folds, and finally a highlight on the edges. Anyone working with oils lays a brightening filter over the base and the blue gains the depth known from period autochromes.

Besides figures, the shades find use on Adrian pattern helmets, on canvas items of equipment and on the transport train material that appeared in the same blue. In 1:35 scale the contents will last for several whole figure groups, and in the smaller scales for dozens of figures.

The three blues are graded so that they can also be mixed with one another to give transitional tones for washed-out and patched items of uniform.