Tamiya Dark Green, XF-61. Tamiya’s color chart online shows it as dark grey so don’t bother. Instruction manual for Tamiya T34/76 ChTz (in construction on my desk now) recommends this color and they’re right. As a kid growing up in Central Euorpe I’ve seen tons of Soviet tanks in museums and as standalone roadside monuments and this color was the most common. I think this is is.
Tamiya’s NATO Green XF-67 (which I used to airbrush my JS-3M Stalin) is likely not the correct Soviet WW2 color even though a number of folks have recommended it. Nevertheless, modelers can always excuse themselves by claiming that the factory where the actual tank was built was out of regulation paint and they used whatever was available. This happened a lot in real life.
[:D]
I also tried XF-61 and thought it was too dark, so I switched to XF-65 (field gray) and I am very happy with the results. I just wish Humbrol would come back out with their russian color (#114). It is the best that I have used.
i shot my T34/85 w/ XF-61.
i did not use it straight from the jar tho. instead, i
lightened it a bit w/ flat white & shot everything that had to be green.
then i added a bit of ‘Deck Tan’ (tamiya XF-55, i think) and sprayed over everything
but the wheels, bottom and under the fenders.
then i added some more deck tan, and shot the horizontal surfaces again.
then i added some more, and shot some highlights.
(see the weekend group build thread for the other pics)
i like the way the color looks, but i have never seen a real T-34.
I was going to spray all top falt surfaces (turret top, engine deck, forward armor plate) with a very, very subtle shade of base green + white to simulate sun bleaching. I may instead use light buff (similar to your tan) for the same purpose. Buff is my standard highlight drybrushing color.
I’m actually going to do a white oil wash on my Panther – a very light mix of mineral spirits and white oils. I’ll be posting pics when it dries so people can see how it looks.
Thanks guys!
it was a weekend quickie that i did for the ‘weekend group build’ this past weekend.
i did most of it Friday after work and Saturday.
but i must confess that i had started the kit in December, cleaning up the wheels and putting some of the upper hull together.
i had read (probably here or in FSM abt using tan or buff instead of white to lighten some colors.
so i used white first, to get the ‘scale effect’ and my base color,
then the tan for the bleaching effects.
Michaelvk,
not sure as i am not artist, not have i taken any classes.
just read somewhere that adding more & more white does not
get the proper look.
i would think yellow would shift the color (or is it hue?) away from the ‘olive’
to a more aircraft interior green or zinc chromate look.
Tamiya has a ‘recipe’ in their Wildcat instructions for interior green that is
(i think) 2 parts flat yellow, 1 part flat green.
(or is it the other way around? in any case, that would be my concern w/ using yellow)
Found a nice mix for soviet green on a t-55 web site. It is 3 parts XF-58 and 1 part XF-21 Sky. Sky is kind of a funny green color and XF-58 is olive. Comes out for a real nice base coat.
I’ve used model master dark green in the past. If undercoated with white, it seems almost perfect. You can even mix in a bit of white to lighten up the colour, albeit a drop or two go a LOOOOOOONG way
Duplicating 4BO is a major pain. [banghead] The real stuff was delivered as components and the formula [40-60% Ochre; 15-20% Kron (zinc hydrochromate) [xx(]; 10-20% Zinc White; and 8-13% Ultramarine] has wide error bands. Worse, left to itself, the stuff blackens as it ages, and exposed to weather, it whitens. In other words, in the real world it’s both lightening AND darkening at the same time! [%-)] I played around with acrylics and found that Olive [NOT Olive Drab] is a pretty fair match for the basic 4BO color. [:-^]
