I’m on the final stages of my M3 STuart and the entire body is covered in testors 1165 olive drab, the academy instructions say that the americans used it at the fort knox training grounds but I’d rather do it in the scheme of a tank that actually saw combat. What would be some paint schemes that I could use with the base colour?
The paint scheme that you have on your Stuart (O.D.) is the colour used by U.S. forces in combat during W.W.II.
Was the M3 (not M3A1) used in the african theatre though because Ive seen Stuarts with yellow bands abount the turret and I know that the americans there had olive drab with the yelow star and bands.
I’m also deciding on weathering so once I know what the paintscheme will be then I can decide on how to weather it.
Ahhhh … now your talking markings and not camo. Yes, I believe the U.S. used the Stuart in N.A. but I don’t have too much info on them.
You might be better served to post this question in the Armour Forum.
Try to work on your techniques. For solid colored objects you will notice that there are shiny spots and dull spots. That is due to the way light reflects off it. Even for a solid object painted in a single color it does not appear uniform to the eye. You can work a nice effect by putting showdows and highlights to it. Use washes on the seems and other areas where a shadow would be cast and drybrushing for raised areas to simulate the highlights. You can do this by making a wash with black and a little bit of your olive drab, and to highly by using yellow added to your olive drab.
Solid colors don’t have to be boring on armour.
The camo scheme I like on the Stuart is the Caunter scheme used in North Africa. It has a base color of light stone though, so that’s probably not what you want. But for your next stuart you can apply it. It has a base of light stone, and two disruptive colors of silver grey and slate grey in a straight masked pattern.