Hello and greeting fellow modellers/tank fanatics,
I have been recently humbled by the confusion over accurate German tank colours. I went out and dropped quite a bit of cash on Vallejo and Modelmaster paints. I’ve just got back into model building after 15 years and have already completed three 1/72nd Dragon armor models. I’m using airbrush and regular brush but prefer the look of the airbrush (when I can get it to work properly).
So far I’ve nailed to colours…
German Camo Green - Vallejo Model Air Color German Green
German Camo Brown - Tamiya XF64
Still much confusion over German Dark yellow. My vallejo Panzer Yellow seems far too bright - as if it needs a base coat underneath. I mixed it with Tamiya’s Dark Yellow and it seems more neutral. The Modelmaster Dunkegelb seems a bit too dark - far different from artists rendition. As you can see, I’ve been mired in confusion over tones/accuracy. [xx(]
I prefer Humbrols and have found that Matt 93 is a pretty close match for the “Sandy” colour found in the European theatre. The “Sandy” colour in Africa was completely different , a light creamy colour maybe Humbrol Matt 148, mainly becuase of the exposure from the sun, it kind of whited the colour a bit.
On the Eastern Front the Tigers usually had a white wash applied in the field over the “Sandy” colour. You can try mixing colours to get a colour that pleases you the best.
Not sure about other colours, sorry!!
Hope that helps.
Welcome Jim, both to FSM and back to the Darkside.
You have great artistic license when it comes to the German colors, especially with late war subjects where the paint was delivered as a paste to be mixed with whatever was at hand; gas, waste oil, kerosene or water.
I had the opportunity to spend some time with Thomas Jentz at AMPS this past summer and as he walked down the line of kits that were all very impressive and beautifully painted models, he said that not one was close to the original German colors.
According to him, Dunkelgelb is more of a Honey shade of brown, Red Brown is a deep mahogany and Panzer grey is a dark, almost blue shade. Take that for what it’s worth, while the Bovington Tiger may be accurate, it looks odd to me and I prefer the more familiar shades.
Of course weather and time also change the colors a great deal.
But you also have to remember that alot of the colors where shipped out to units as a solid pigment and that the unit level paintshop would mix them up in the field using whatever solevent they could find…i can’t remember where i read this but i do remember reading it. Maybe an osprey publishing or something
Welcome to the forums. I’ve stuck with Tamiya colors mostly: Dark yellow for Dunkelgelb, Dark Green for Olive Grun and Red Brown for the German tri-color cammo colors. I like Model Master’s Schwartzgrau for Panzergrau. Yes the colors did vary widely. The green could look anywhere from pea-green to dark green. So german and even Allied colors could vary widely as mentioned through the process of weathering.
Hey ausf, can you give any more details on that honey brown? I’d like to use it in my next project, just for fun. Like a close color reference?
The Tiger in the UK (forget where – is it Bovington?) apparently has some original dunkelgelb on it, doesn’t it? I recall it being on the website, and looking more or less like what Tamiya markets.
Did Jentz say anything about the Olive Green?
I’ve heard others say that Jentz claims that Dunkelgelb did not fade in the sun, because it was natural pigment, and apparently that lasts virtually forever. Such is the word from Missing-Lynx, anyway.
Welcome to the Darkside Jim! I can’t really add to what everyone has said, except I usually use MM paints and have been quite happy with the results. I am planning to try some Tamiya and Humbrol paints though and see how they work.
What paint did you use to paint the Tiger in your Sig. That’s the color I want for my Tiger? I bought all the paints mentioned above and the MM stuff seems almost Green. If this is correct, I don’t want my tank to be right (wasn’t that a country song?)
Hey Larry,
I don’t recall him mentioning the Green. He claims the real color is the one on the Bovington Tiger that is running. There are some pics around here of it. Of course he was part of the research effort of that restoration so I wouldn’t expect him to say any different. I you see one of those pics you’ll know what I mean by honey brown.
An interesting thing I noticed is with Tamiya- the box art and their paint look different. On the boxart, the dunkelgelb is brighter and more yellow than their paint. Their rotbraun on the box art has a more reddish cast than their paint as well. I have been adding Hull Red to my redbrown to replicate this, but I haven’t messed with the yellow- yet
I don’t know, all this color talk seems like all of us will never be absolutely accurate. It seems like there are variables affecting the true colors. The thing I’ve noticed about a lot of the B&W photos is the camo seems much more muted thatone would expect, and the dark yellow is pretty dark, especially when sprayed over zimmerit. I tried to capture the correct scheme on this tiger below. I don’t really know for sure if I did, but, I’m pleased with it. I went over the dark yellow with a wash to darken it to the approximate rendition of my reference photos.
Really? Jentz walked right up to a kit that I would bet money was XF-60 and said that it wasn’t even close. He really kind of carried on about it, which led me to believe that the Bov Tiger was much different (like it appears in the pics). I would hope that Tamiya was close because it’s what I like and use.
Thank you for the tremendous input. Yes, to reproduce a historically accurate German paint color is a mind-numbing task to say the least. Just getting started again I’ve been overwhelmed by the enormous selection of manufacturers and shades. All of this input is very appreciated.
Last, nice modelwork guys - very impressive. Time to get to work!
Colors, schmolors!
There are soooo many variables involved in arriving at “accurate” colors in modelling, anything in the ballpark should be acceptable!
(So says the color-blind guy!)
