Scale Colour Effect: When did it come to plastic modelling?

[Tom Hall]

Okay, thank you. I think my inquiry has been answered all it can be at this site.

Northduk, you seem to be saying that we cannot know exactly when the doctrine of scale colour came to plastic modelling, nor by what avenues, because some may have used its techniques without publishing that they were doing so. I agree. Indeed, some may have used its techniques without even knowing that they were doing so. That is one of the problems for my research: Generally, we cannot know just by looking at a painted miniature whether the person who painted it made any colour adjustments to compensate for scale distance.

I hope to at least determine when people began publishing on the subject and find who some of the more visible early proponents were. One of the earliest published proponents of it for plastic modelling in English seems to be Ian Huntley.

[Nick Millman]

There is a strong English tradition of watercolour and landscapes. I took art until the start of the 4th year at secondary school, so that would be 14+, which is when subjects were dropped for specialisation. Certainly I did watercolour landscapes, with the washed-out backgrounds being applied first with steadily increasing strength of pigment as I approached the foreground. I don't recall specific labelling of the technique other than the general observation that distances were weaker and faded out.

In art it is generally called atmospheric or aerial perspective and goes back as far as Da Vinci. It was certainly being taught as such when I was at school and the several techniques included making distant colours lighter and less saturated.

Nick