Hello -
I’m having a hard time figuring out what colors to paint tanks. When I look for “Olive Drab” - I find there are a lot of different shades. How does one decide what specific brand and shade to use?
I mostly do American Tanks from WW2, but not exclusively. I use an airbrush (Iwata Revolution ) so I would want to use paints that will spray well. I’ve not tried anything except Tamiya paint, and would hope to be able to stick to one brand
Thanks-
Boris
Colors like OD, German Gray, Russian 4BO, have so many variations do to weathering,fading,source of paint,that almost any brand works.Find a brand you like working with and looks acceptable to your eye and go with it.Tamiya OD is okay.I like Mission Models and Vallejo works too.Google pictures of American tanks and you will see all the variations
Tony gave great advice. Olive Drab changed over the years. WWII OD is not the same shade as Korean War OD, which changed again afterwards, again during Vietnam, and again into what is used today.
For the WWII shade Gunze makes a nice version. I haven’t yet tried AK Real Color or Vallejo Model Air take on OD either. Mission Models is good. Model Master had a great shade, but it’s OOP now.
I will second the others, OD can be/weather to lots of different shades, so pick what you want.
I love the AK Interactive Real Colors line, they have at least two US OD’s (“regular” and “faded”) as well as a few others I think. They airbrush very very well in my experience. Get some of their thinner to if you try them…they say they can be thinned with lots of different things, but I like to use their brand. Goes a long way (still on my first bottle) and works great.
Model Master had a faded olive drab as well.
Reaper MSP Core colors offer a triad series of Olive Drab, Olive Shadow, and Worn Olive. They are acrylics and come in dropper bottles like Vallejo. The triads allow you to do shadows and panel highlights using the same series of paints.
Reaper is often thought of as “fantasy” or game miniature paints but they work well in what may be considered our main line hobby genres
Check out the Jan. 2021 issue of FSM. There is an article there about “44 shades of Olive Drab.” Apparantly, you would be correct in using any of them. Very interesting information there.
Oh tanks! I picked up a set of AK Interactive paints - US Olive Drab. Comes with 6 bottles, all slightly different shades of OD. Good to know they will airbrush well.
Boris
That sounds like a bundle of misinformation. Olive Drab 41 is not Olive Drab No.8, which is not FS 34087, and none of those are the Dark Olive Drab in use in Vietnam and West Germany during the late Cold War.