I need to re-up on some paints. Seems I have run low on non-aircraft colors. I want to go ahead and try to order at least 1 bottle of all the common colors for armor. So, I am asking for your help to make sure I don’t forget anything. I do mostly German armor so I will concentrate their. Although, I would like to grab the most common US and Russian colors since I have a few Sherms, T-34s and KV-1s in the stash.
My list so far:
Dark Yellow
Dark Brown
Dark Green
Panzer Grey
(Whatever color I need for DAK tanks…not sure yet)
White (for whitewashes)
OD Green
Russian Green
HELP!! I really feel like there has to be more?? BTW: I am just referring to main colors for camo etc. not detailing colors
I love your approach to this jdice1980 [:D]
Make it simple!
I have a similar problem but I am afraid my conclusion so far is that this is multi step decision making [8-)]
Complicating things…
Enamels vs Acrylics?
Brand A before brand B, can brand A be mixed with brand B?
I’d also recommend blacks and dark, dark browns for preshade coats
For drybrushing allied armor, the German color dunkelgrau works very well.
For whitewashes, I’d actually recommend going with an offwhite. Straight up white looks far too vibrant:
Do you plan on doing any Brit armor? If so you’ll probably want to get something to represent the Brit’s version of OD. I’m lazy and use a mix of OD and RAF Dark Green. Not accurate, but cooler looking. You’ll also need the stuff on hand to mix up blue-black for any Brit machines sporting disruptive camo.
In reference to the DAK colors: I know I’ve seen Desert Yellow and Desert Sand, so thanks for clearing that up.
I only have 1 British armor model in the stash (a Firefly I got at hobby lobby for pocket change). Brit armor doesn’t really appeal to me so I will just mix when I get to that one.
I have lots of black. I am obsessive about having an abundance of that. And I did intend an off white
Actually DAK colors are far more complicated that that. Tamiya does not make anything comparible. Model Master has enamels and acrylics for DAK. Lifecolor has acrylics.
Gunmetal, I like the to the airbrush ready metalizer from Model Master, I find it easier to brush with. I have steel, aluminum, burnt iron, exhaust, rust, titanium, etc. About 20 bucks worth, You certainly need some metal paints for dry brushing, etc.
Learn to mix paint and you;ll save yourself a LOT of money in paints. Off-white can easily be made with regular white and by adding a little bit of brown, a smidge of black, or even a dash of tan/DY. You can also effect the same shade by a simple wash of raw umber or van dyke oil paint.
You’ll fins that using straight armor color paint right out of the bottle gets pretty bland after a while. Seldom is the “correct shade” of any color actually true to real life conditions and hues. You can get the basic colors and then by learning to mix and tint your color palette, you can come up with all kinds of shades that will gve your models more life and unique appearances.
Agree with everything you said, Karl. But for some reason, offwhite is one of those shades I always have trouble getting right. Whereas both Gunze and Vallejo make offwhites that I very much like, and that seem to escape the awful coverage characteristics of most whites and yellows.
doog: I do already do a bit of mixing. My goal here is to build a supply of base colors that can be varied. I wouldn’t be painting straight out of the bottle on anything as I have already noted with some of my first builds that everything looks the same. I like using filters and washes to vary color as well as adding in some white, black, buff etc to change hues. I do seem to have the same problem mixing a convincing dirty white, but I know after weathering that everything begins to look more natural.
I do appreciate the tips for detailing colors. I have loads of paints that I can mix to handle detail painting though. Like I said I need a stockpile of the basic overall colors to work from.
