I just bought Model Master Acyrlic’s paint called German Uniform color and I built my DML panzer tank riders from the kit and pulled out my new paint. When I brushed it on I said “they can’t be serious, right?”. The color looked all weird-too aquaish. When it dried it remained the same! I just want some German uniforms, not aqua men![;)] Does anybody else have problems with model master acyls or the paint shade “German uniform”? I just want to see if I don’t know what their uniforms look like, or if I’m not the only one with a beef about this shade. Thanks all.
AM, sounds almost like the reed color uniforms. Which I guess might appear to have an aqua tint to them. Let me pull some of my references for you and I’ll get back to you.
There is alot of variation and specs for the different branches and divisions. Maybe if I can narrow it down it will become clearer as to the intent.
By adding a dab of blue you can darken it or by adding a dab of red you can make it a little warmer and bing it closer to an olive shade.
Mike
Well, if you don’t mind using Enamels, Humbrol 94 with some black makes a good dark green. When white is added it grays out to a decent German Field Gray. The yellow in the 94 keeps it sufficiently in the green area of gray. You can add more 94 if it loses it’s green tone. With this combination you can mix it from heavy on the gray to heavy on the green as you see fit, just by juggling the ratio of colors. This way you can paint each figure with slightly different shades, even painting the blouse and the pants different shades, which adds an extra touch to your scenes. Some examples had an almost brown tone, bordering on OD. Using blue and/or red can help further adjust the color. There are many other perfectly good mixes for this color though, regardless of the brand of paint. The best thing to do is study color photos or color plates in books and look at the variations, and try to match you paint to that, and forget about pre-mixes. A pre-mixed color can be a good starting point though.
Here’s one of my versions of German Field Green (the sleeves are the most prominant example visible here), painted in Humbrol. Not sure of the exact mix, as this piece was done several years ago, but it’s not far off of what I described in my last post. Note the pea greenish tone. Verlinden has a decent formula for Field Gray. I’ll dig it up and post it later.
If the pic isn’t showing up, click here —> http://www.geocities.com/plymonkey/GerCU.jpg
Mix your own. German field grey did vary a lot during the war due to the war economy and problems of supplying quality materials for uniforms. You can see how later war uniforms are not up to the same standard as during the early war years and had much more variation in the color.