Avernos’ Saga saga!

currently hunting for inspiration for tattoos, tried a little free hand with a pigma pen to see if it will be easier than using a paint brush, but I’ll revisit this in more detail later on.

starting on my Saga saga with my picts, I have 1 point of Attecotti armed with spears and then 2 points armed with javelins.

I’ve gone with a variety of skin tones but kept everything basic as they will have blue paint and tattoos

Following on from the previous post I’ve got a list of paints that can do the job for some of the dark age dye colours. This is by no means exhaustive. Something to bear in mind is that all dyes were made in batches and used over and over until they ran out. So the most expensive were the first batch with the most vibrant colours after that the colour becomes less saturated and muted. To that end Ivory is worth picking up to use as a both highlight colour and to make new shades and tones.

I’m splitting the colours into two types the first are the most common colours and the second, uncommon or rarer dyes.

Common colours for unbleached linen and wools, as well as some of the more rustic dyes.

some of the more uncommon, or pricer dye colours.

Purple as a dye was rare and expensive, especially one that didn’t fade or wash out quickly. Rare though it was it was still possible, cheaper purples existed as well by double dipping the cloth, first in a red then in a blue dye but the results could be inconsistent. Probably one for the warlords or a trim on Hearthguard only more than the regular plebs.

on a trip to Stockholm a couple of years ago I took some photos of cloth dyed with period fabrics, the thing that interested me was the colour variation between the different cloths even when using the same dye.

This lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole of research for dark age painters.

After trawling the internet for a while I came across Jenny Dean’s blog which is all about home dying and back in 2009 and 2011 she did a series on Anglo-Saxon dyes, this was gold dust and I’m using it across all my dark age miniatures.