Thought this blog post might be of interest
I'm currently painting up some SYW Austrians but after seeing the colours of the white uniforms in the Military Museum in Vienna I decided I'd go for an off white colour rather than more of a standard white that I've used on my 15mm Austrian Napoleonics
Experiment with various colours now on the blog, though to be honest apart from the ivory version I can't see that much difference and wonder if its worth the effort and angst! https://valleyboyinnz.wordpress.com/
If you can create an obvious contrast between the uniform and the belts (as in the museum mannequins) then you have succeeded. Obviously this will require different colours for 28mm figures than it does for 15mm figures, but generally you are looking at a warm, brownish grey for woollen clothing.
Sometimes, more is more.
Kein Plan überlebt den ersten Kontakt mit den Würfeln. (No plan survives the first contact with the dice.) Baron Mannshed von Wreckedoften, First Sea Lord of the Bavarian Admiralty.
I rarely paint any uniforms white these days. I do a base coat of Foundry Rawhide (mid or light as the mood takes me) and use Ivory for the top coat. If I wanted three tones, which I avoid like the plague, I'd do 25/75 of the Rawhide/Ivory.
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Ps The only white paint used was on the cravat and shirt cuffs.
I tend to use Offwhite as a 1st coat and then overcoat with white. As they rarely cover very well you get varying shades to some extent. I then wash over dark brown and highlight were needed. That's on 6 & 10mm though, the big buggers may need more subtlety.
I tend to use P3 Menoth White Base and Menoth Highlight, but probably not much difference from the VJ paint mixes.
There’s a 5 layer approach I use for really rough whites, it’s more medieval but I’d like to try it for some Trent Miniature Austrians I have. Must dig them out.
Like others i rarely use pure white now. Vallejo Off White (which is very slightly ivory-ish) is my main white. I either build up the shading from a grey base or a buff/rawhide base depending what effect i want to give.
For my 10mm's which were quickshaded i painted base white (primer), then quickshade mid tone then re-highlighted the belts etc with off-white.
