Prussian blue in contrast/express paints - recommendations?

[Imspartacus]

Hi - painting a number of Napoleonic Prussian units using speed/express type paints. Bought a number of different blues at the weekend but none have turned out what I would consider a suitable colour - does anyone have a recommendation?
Thanks in anticipation

[Last Hussar]

Speaking as a lazy painter (in as much as I hate painting) I would remind you that the dyes of the period were variable,  and probably not fast.

Go with dark blue. That's it. As long as there is little variation within a battalion you are probably right.

[John Cook]

I know nothing about speed/express type paints.  I use Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue highlighted with Vallejo Prussian Blue for all dark blue Napoleonic uniforms.  One of the reasons dark blue was popular was becasue it was relatively stable.

[fred.]

I've got the GW Dark Blue contrast (can't recall the silly GW name) and it seems much too dark for Prussian Blue. 

I have found that the Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue is a good colour, and can be thinned nicely to give the effect of a contrast style paint. Or as John says can be highlighted easily - a tiny amount of white added to it works as well. 

[Leman]

I am currently using Contrast Ultramarines on my 1870 Prussians. This gives a suitably dark enough blue without it looking almost black. Finding a colour you are happy with is a real case of pot luck. Nobody that I know of makes Cornflower blue, which is a pain if you are painting a lot of mid/late C19th armies. However, as chance would have it, I stumbled across Green Stuff World's Ultramar - much lighter than the above mentioned Contrast paint - which makes for an excellent single coat Bavarian blue of the period, which was actually darker than the colour often depicted in uniform books.

[Leman]

This is Green Stuff ultrama on some 1866 Bavarians. Compare to the command group where I mixed different colours to try and get a satisfactory Bavarian Blue.



I am now going to try Contrast Celenium Blue to see how that works on a pure white undercoat.

[jimduncanuk]

I would suggest an experiment along the lines of:

Undercoat black
Dry brush white
Wash with a contrast blue
Add highlights if necessary with a lighter but darkish blue

Jim