NATO Camo

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Allright I am starting on my next one ,Tamiya 1/35 Leopard 2 A5 and already have my first question. I have not yet tried to do a camo scheme on anything so what is the best way to go about doing one.In other words what is the base color to start out with? Any other advice on doing camo is welcome to. As always thanks.

2

LQ Basic rule of thumb with camo…lighter colour first and progress to Darkest colour.

Use a good airbrush at a low pressure to add later colours without overspray, otherwise you may need to mask off the original colours. You can do this with paper affixed to the model with a bit of blu-tack. “Hang” the paper over the blue tack to leave a gap between the paper and model and you will get a soft demarcation line. Use the blu-tack as the edge of the mask and you will get a sharp defined line.

What country and camo scheme are you looking to do? German Green,brown and black?

3

Hi Lizardqing2,

I did an M1 in NATO Camo last year. If I am not mistaken it is in black, dark green and dark brown colors. I used dark green as an overall coat. The reason for this is I found it easier to cover with the two other darker colors. Then I used the dark brown and black in the same order. It would be more difficult to use dark green over black or dark brown. The color will not be right.

Unfortunately, I did not have an airbrush back then. The camo job looked fine but the paint is not so smoothly applied. I have re-done it in desert camo some months back and is now re-doing it again.

I am not sure if what I did was right but I am sure some of the guys will come along shortly.

4

HEY,
I have noticedthat the NATO color scheme has more green than brown or black so i would agree with Dwight when he says you should put the green on first followed by brown and black.

Randy

5

Thanks guys, I was thinking that green would be best for the base coat but just wanted to double check. I realized how good of a deal I got on this kit today. Stopped by a HS driving around today and saw the same kit for $55 , felt real good since I picked mine up for $8. Don’t know what it normally goes for.

6

Lizard,

I just finished a Leopard 2 A4 - here’s some Nato camo references

http://www.ifrance.com/ArmyReco/europe/Hollande/vehicules_lourds/leopard2/Leopard2_Pays-Bas_diaporama.htm

http://www.panzerbaer.de/colours/default.htm - it’s there somewhere

http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/modern/adleo.htm

http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/modern/jbleo.htm

Good luck

7

It’s been ten years since I retired, but I believe the three colors were called Forrest Green, Earth Brown and Black by the U.S. Army. I don’t have any FS numbers writen down or I just can’t find them.

8

Thanks for the links build, should come in good use. So how did you like the kit? Is it as good as it looks in the box?

Steve thanks for the colors, gives me more to go by in looking at the somewhat limited sources I have around here.

9

Lizard,

I ended up with an old Trumpeter kit - that was motorized. It was a bear ! I spent a lot of time staring into space while holding superglued pieces together in order to get them to stay together. The wheels didn’t line up. I had to glue the track to the wheels in order to keep the wheels straight. I was not impressed by the way it went together.

After all that, I would say painting and weathering went well. It turned out to be a good looking model ( I’m talking about the shape, size and overall apearance) I liked it so much, I found a Revell Leopard 1A4 to do in the future. I have just afew little details and I’ll probably post it.

Good luck with yours

10

Well I hope the Tamiya kit is done better than that for sure.