German Ambush Paint Scheme

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Hello all,

I’m trying to find the easiest and most effective way to paint the dots on a German ambush paint scheme. I have a Badger 150 airbrush and while it comes with settings for Full, Medium, and Fine, I’m not sure it can focus enough of a uniformly round dot. I thought about using a template or mask of sorts, but I didn’t want the dots to have crisp edges. I’m open to suggestions. Help!

Thanks,

Okie

2

I use a product called “Microbrush” when I am painting the Ambush scheme. You should be able to find them at your LHS or try Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I have also used a very fine brush to paint the dots. HTH.

3

Hold the template an inch or so away from the vehicle. This will control the dot size and also allow the edges to feather. The dots will increase in size as the template moves away from the vehicle so practice on some scrap first.

4

AFAIK the dots were usually brushed on. So I’d suggest brushing them on. Seems to me to be awfully complicated to airbrush on dots (or chevrons – they often looked like stick-figure seagulls) that were brushed on the real deal anyway.

Tiny brushes can be gotten at any hobby store that sells miniatures for wargames – there seem to be an awful lot of those Games Workshop stores around. Some of the brushes are incredibly tiny – I’ve got a 10/0 and a 20/0 brush for very small details I put on my 15mm miniatures.

ps: I’ve read that they very often left the dots off. They’d start putting them on, and then the Brits and Yanks would have this annoying habit of firing three inch rockets at the tanks from fighter bombers. [:p]

5

is your badger double action or single?, if the former ,( and practice this on junk first of course)use your finest tip and needle, barely pull the button back , hit in spurts ,. also you may make your own template out of a piece of paper and a paper punch(small)

6

Some dots were free-hand sprayed, some were stenciled, some were brush painted, some weren’t dots at all, but triangles, bars and bow-ties. Some dots were quite large, about 6 inches, others were rather smaller, about 3 inches, some were smaller yet, only about an inch or so. The bars and bow-ties, seen on some late war Panthers and a Sturmtiger or two in particular, were made by hand, not with a brush stroke, but by stippling. That is to say they took a brush loaded with paint and stabbed it onto the vehicle. A slight twisting motion of the brush while stippling created the bow-tie effect. It is important to have good photo references while doing this to produce the correct effect, as not all of these techniques were used on all vehicles.

7

I try to use different methods from touching the end of the brush to make dots
Or with my Kingtiger I used my airbrush with different size dots
There isn’t really a rule of what shape or size the dots are

8

I used a #5 spotter brush with thinned paint and liked the results. True, dots came in all sizes.

9

I like the brushed on dots.
Claymore, your sig is killing me. I think I hurt myself.

Mike

10

The only time I have used a template for my Ambush schemes, was on the 1/16 (just because I wanted them rectangualr)

For all my other builds, I have done them freehand. The best brush to use, IMHO, is a “Spotter” brush. These are found in any art-craft type stores. They have very fine bristles, used for well, making spots.