There's some help here on 18th/19th century grenzer but I now have some late renaissance chaps to paint. I have the impression that they were far from uniformed troops, the empire's bashi bazouks possibly, but would welcome any suggestions as to how they should be painted.
I've seen some illustrations of Grenzers from the 1740s (WAS) and they were definitely not in uniform at that stage, unlike the SYW. The preferred colours seemed to be very bright.
Thanks for that tip. I've found one photo on the web of miniatures where grenzer are taking on janissaries and, yes, they are a mix of bright colours and look like brigands with cloaks etc.
The grenzers were always known as "red cloaks" in the later Austrian army, so I would suggest that that was the predominant colour from fairly early on.
Thanks for that one, too. Certainly the figs in the online photo are in red hats too.
See if this link helps.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=120436
Chad
Thanks, Chad! They are really very banditti-like and they do have red cloaks and I can see that splashing colour about {at 6mm] should do the job. Thanks for your help, everyone.