A couple requests for my paint scheme has resulted in this effort at explaining how I paint my axis troops. The only camera I have access to is an iPHONE camera so let me just appologize for the poor picture quality now.... So what follows is a little article on how to paint non-winter camo germans in Pea Dot camo smocks. I do mostly Pea Dot as it was the last major production run of camo by the end of the war. There was another pattern being developed that was resistant to being seen by infra-red light imaging but it looks too much like US Army WoodLand BDU so I dont use it. I sometimes do Oak Leaf A/B Summer/Fall but not this time...
I've been painting, with middling skill, for about 15 years and during that time have compiled various 'formulas' from various sources. So, some of my techniques might be cribbed from other sources, I dont remember where I got them and claim no origanality.
I always paint from a black base coat (citadel chaos black primer). I try to use three different colors for each color applied, a shade, a base, and a highlight. I paint in layers, as in I start at the 'bottom' layer and work my way out. That usually means starting with skin, then clothes, belts and battle rattle, weapons and details. I always use a pallet and add a little water to my paint.
Anyway, here's the colors used:
Citadel colors:
Chaos Black Primer
TallarnFlesh
Elf Flesh
Bleached Bone
Devlan Mud Wash
Badab Black Wash
Adeptus Battlegrey
Vallejo colors use:
70873 Field Drab
830 German Fieldgrey WWII
70826 German Camo Med. Brown
70914 Green Ochre
70995 German Grey
979 German Camo Dark Green
821 German Camo Beige
xxx? white
xxx? German Camo Bright Green
Start by painting the 'bottom' layer, the skin. Mix Tallarn Flesh and Elf flesh about 60/40, this is your shade layer. Mix in a bit more Elf Flesh to about 40/60, thats your 'base' or mid color. To highlight the skin add some bleached bone (25%ish) to the mix and apply only to the very raised areas.
Now for the base coats. In this step I block in all the base colors.
Camo tunics get 70873 U.S. Field Drab.
Pants, hats, gloves, and headscarves get 830 German Field grey WWII.
Boots, 70826 German Camo Med. Brown.
Webbing, pouches, belts, goggle straps, panzerfaust and panzerschreck are painted 70914 Green Ochre.
Armor, helmets and gasmask cannisters, 70995 German Grey.
You may need to put a couple of coats on depending on how much you thin the paints.
Once the base coats are dry, wash them with Devlan Mud, except the areas painted German Grey, paint those areas Badab Black. Note: do not wash the skin, its done already.
Once the washes are dry its time to go back and reapply the base coats. Go back and add a little bit of Bleached Bone to the base colors (except German Grey) and paint the raised surfaces of the inked base colors. For the 70995 German Grey, add a little White and paint over the inked surfaces. Add a little more white and paint the edges of the German Grey areas for your highlight. Remember to leave the darkened (inked) reccessed areas dark, its the shadows. For the guns, edge highlight with Adeptus BattleGrey, mix in a bit of white for extreme highlights.
To do the Pea Dot camo smocks paint some blobs of 979 German Camo Dark Green blobs over about 1/3 (or less) of the smock. Paint dots of 979 in the remaining areas. Next paint some 821 German Camo Beige blobs onto the remaining smock covering 1/3 or less of the remaining smock. Paint dots of 821 onto the 979 Green and the 70873 Field Drab. Now go back and add dots of 70873 over the Green and Beige. Add dots of Green over the Beige. And to finnish it off add dots of German Camo Bright Green all over the smock. So you should have a smock thats roughly 1/3 US Field drab blobs, 1/3 German Camo Dark Green blobs, 1/3 German Camo Beige, dots of each color ver the blobs of eachother color and German CAmo Bright Green over all of it.
Thats the basics of how to paint non-winter camo germans. You can add details, like painting in the eyes and adding decals and basing, but thats up to personal taste really. I mean you dont want to base yours like mine, youd want to base em to match your forces or table.
Any questions or clarification needed let me know. Hope this helps.
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