Spanish galleon colors?

[aurélien wolff]

Hello, I'm tempted for my next sailing ship model by a heller spanish galleon and I wonder about the colors. In "floating baroque", there's an artwork depicting them with verry dark wood without much colors (this one: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.156252.html ), then there are other wich much more colors. I wonder wich one are more accurate and how much we know of the colors of such ships.
More colors on the galleon of this spanish armada artwork per example:

source: https://www.britishbattles.com/the-spanish-war/the-spanish-armada/
There's this drawing too:

from a build of the heller kit: http://fighters.forumactif.com/t98081-galion-espagnol-heller-1-200
Thanks for your answers!

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Galleons were painted in all sorts of colors, and artists paintings of them vary wildly. Since any paint except red was expensive, only the most expensive ships had large areas of paint on them, and the average galleon seemed to favor simple paint schemes such as the one in the painting below. Strips of color on the galleries and beakhead were pretty common. The hull was usually bare wood, and the bottom was white from the "white stuff" use to protect the hull from teredo worms.



It does not seem realistic for a galleon to be painted using as much paint as the cover art below. The cover art on Heller kits always show too much color, and too bright in choice of colors. Blue paint is especially expensive. The most expensive French ships built many years later that the galleon you are working on often used blue, but Spanish ships seemed to prefer red as used in the painting above. We are talking generalities here. There are exceptions. There are very few specific ships by name that are featured in paintings which provide clues as to how that ship was painted. Even the structures of the galleries are suspect on Heller kits, being that mode company's guess as to the appearance of the ship. My advice is to obtain a few books on galleons. There are many out there, and some go into great detail on galleon design, and have some information on paint schemes for galleons of various nations.


Replica ship El Galeon Andalucia. Note the use of color in accents only.

 

[Bluebeard]

aurélien wolff;
I understand you want to paint a plastic hull and make it look like if it was wood.
I will tell you the technique I use but of course it is not the ultimate one or the best one.
Since my other hobby is painting with olio paints, I also use them on my plastic model with great results.
Here is my formula:

FOR THE HULL: A mixture of 90% Burnt Umber with a 10%Golden Ochre, you have to play with the ratio that is most appealing to your eyes, once you got your desired color, I first wet the brush with Naphtha enough to reduce the oleo thickness and apply thick to the already washed with water and soap plastic surface,

Have in hand a wider soft bristle brush to softly spread the color evenly.
Naphtha will make the oleo paint dry faster.

FOR THE DECK; I use 50% Indian Red and 50% Grey, again, you have to play with the mixture until you are satisfied with the color.

I hope this will help you.
I strongly advise you not be tempted to use acrylic paints because they don’t mix as good as the oleos and they could dry too fast.

Once more I will say that this is what WORKS FOR ME with great results and absolutely don’t have to be the best method.
Here first you'll see a sample of one of one of my paintings and also my 1/70 Imai Golden Hind that won a first place when I used to International compete. The Golden Hind was painted with the method I described here, but for the red and the yellow markings, I used Warhammer acrylic paints.
Right when the show ended a person came to me and made me an offer I couldnt refused.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

aurélien wolff;
I understand you want to paint a plastic hull and make it look like if it was wood.
I will tell you the technique I use but of course it is not the ultimate one or the best one.
Since my other hobby is painting with olio paints, I also use them on my plastic model with great results.
Here is my formula:

FOR THE HULL: A mixture of 90% Burnt Umber with a 10%Golden Ochre, you have to play with the ratio that is most appealing to your eyes, once you got your desired color, I first wet the brush with Naphtha enough to reduce the oleo thickness and apply thick to the already washed with water and soap plastic surface,

Have in hand a wider soft bristle brush to softly spread the color evenly.
Naphtha will make the oleo paint dry faster.

FOR THE DECK; I use 50% Indian Red and 50% Grey, again, you have to play with the mixture until you are satisfied with the color.

I hope this will help you.
I strongly advise you not be tempted to use acrylic paints because they don’t mix as good as the oleos and they could dry too fast.

Once more I will say that this is what WORKS FOR ME with great results and absolutely don’t have to be the best method.
Here first you'll see a sample of one of one of my paintings and also my 1/70 Imai Golden Hind that won a first place when I used to International compete. The Golden Hind was painted with the method I described here, but for the red and the yellow markings, I used Warhammer acrylic paints.
Right when the show ended a person came to me and made me an offer I couldnt refused.

View attachment 348286View attachment 348285View attachment 348284

Seriously Bluebeard, you actually traded your beautiful Golden Hind for THIS THING?

 

[Bluebeard]

Seriously Bluebeard, you actually traded your beautiful Golden Hind for THIS THING?

Darivs
No, I did not trade my Golden Hing for the painting.
I sold the Golden Hind to a person that that was at the show.
The painting is something I did and also sold it for a good amount of money.
Oleo painting is my other hobby.
Sorry you didn’t like it.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Darivs
No, I did not trade my Golden Hing for the painting.
I sold the Golden Hind to a person that that was at the show.
The painting is something I did and also sold it for a good amount of money.
Oleo painting is my other hobby.
Sorry you didn’t like it.

Just kidding you, buddy... it's very colorful.

 

[aurélien wolff]

I like the painting. I noticed you made the wood on the golden hind verry dark too and you made the color different as well (it seems different in every representation of this ship).

 

[Bluebeard]

M

Just kidding you, buddy... it's very colorful.

I like the painting. I noticed you made the wood on the golden hind verry dark too and you made the color different as well (it seems different in every representation of this ship).

It is that dark because is a picture of a magazine but in reality it was a medium dark that you could actually see the grain of the wood.
Imai is very famous for this particular detail.
When using the correct technique, the plastic looks very much like wood.