which are the best colors for washes and drybrushing 3-color NATO camo?
I use black on the 3-color for a wash… I dry-brush with lighter shades of the base colors on their respective areas… Careful you don’t get too light on the black paint though… It really isn’t black either, but a very dark grey…
NATO Black is more of a very dark green, not a grey. The Tamiya acrylic representation is pretty accurate. As Hans said, straight black works pretty well as an overall wash on all three of these colours. For highlights on the black, I’d use a slighly less dark green, such as RLM70 or British Deep Bronze Green. Never use grey to highlight black, unless you want your model to end up looking like a zebra!
Cheers,
Chris.
Sure looks grey to me… And if you’re getting “zebras”. you’re using the too much white in your mix…
Thanks guys, much appreciated. now I can finish my Tamiya Leo 2A5 and the RoG Marder A3
Looking at vehicles serving with European members of NATO, I would say that ther is a definate hint of green in the black. With North American members, however, perhaps there is more of a hint of grey. This is reflected in the Polly Scale and Tamiya versions of the colours. I understand that the Polly Scale colour is matched to the colour seen on US Army vehicles, while the Tamiya colour is based on the Bundeswehr version.
Maybe, because they tend now to serve in different parts of the world, the two armed forces’ colours weather differently? I would think this especially possible with vehicles serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, if not re-painted in sand/ grey.
And I was overstating the zebra thing for emphasis - though I’ve seen it on German tanker figures more times than I care to remember.
Cheers,
Chris.
Might well be the reason, Chris… After all, US vehicles are painted with CARC colors made in the USA… I’d imagine that the models we export to the rest of the Americas share the same finishes… Thinking back, I do remember a slight difference in shades on the UK and Bundeswehr vehicles… Dunno if it’s climate either, but I DO know the same vehicles I used in Texas were slightly different colors than the ones I used in Minnesota or Washington State… Fading was much more pronounced in the South as well… And, There was a shift in the black to almost a purple color in the black used pre-CARC as well… Add to it that, in the South and Southwestern deserts, as well Saudi/Iraqi desert during Desert Shield/Sorm, the brown disappeared next to the green with the slightest bit of dust. 'Course, a few minute later and everything disappered under the dust of that place… (None of our vehicles were repainted for DS/DS, they stayed in the NATO three-color for the duration, except for a few of the guns…) You can’t see it until it hits the wash-rack…