Monday 24 May 2010

Painting WWII late war European Allied (British) Armour 1944/45

Note to Self: Back of the fag packet painting instructions, used for Comets.

Undercoat Black:
Body: Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black

Tracks: Games Workshop Chaos Black over plastic track, only because it was vinyl plastic.
Note: Also did this after finishing tank body work.

Basecoat:
Prime body in Khaki Drab Tamiya XF-51
Rough and ready wet-brush approach, as I don't mind in particular if I leave a fair amount of black around shadow points, likewise it I over paint any section I can recover in next step (Oily Black Wash)
(Note: I always assumed that Olive Drab was the standard Allied Camouflage, this seems to be the US preference and perhaps a shortcoming of the old Airfix paint system)

Oily Black Wash, my magical secret:
Using a fairly/very watered down Anita's Acrylic Metallic Black wash to go round all the parts I think need darkened emphasis, which seemed to be most of the tanks. The great thing about this step is that you know you are going to partially paint over most of it again. The stuff you don't cover are definite highlight areas. But the wash seems to do the work for you :)

Highlights (couple of iterations here):
Tamiya Khaki Drab (XF-51) plus a little Tamiya Yellow (XF-3) brings the highlight up
However if you see/feel it going too yelllow add Tamiya White (XF-2) to bring it back down, i.e. paler.
I also threw in a bit of XF-60 Dark Yellow as way of experimentation
The final highlights had a certain paleness, particularly catching the angular turret corners of the Comet. 
Note: You can stop there as a legitimate 1944/45 camouflage pattern.

Black Camouflage Pattern
1944/45 disruptive block pattern
Back to a watered down XF-1 and a controlled slosh on.
Getting the surface black but not pitch black
My reference here is D-Day to Berlin by Terrence Wise
I do shade this black (XF-1) with a touch of White (XF-2) and/or Games Workshop Codex Grey

Note: I always gave the corners/edges a highlight of the lighter Khaki Drill [see above] coming through (trumping) the black, don't know why but visually it worked for me. I also tried for a messy look rather than a parade ground look.

Tank Tracks
Final highlight of Games Workshop Bolt Gun Metal, perhaps with a touch of black thrown in
Wet/Dry brush lightly done

Brush Tip: I used a big brush (says he coming from just painting 1/3000 Navwar IJN capitol ships), a fairly cheap and cheerful one too, a Revell size 3, although it has been worn "into shape" over successive 20mm German tank painting projects.

All the above to help my fading memory and perhaps be assistance to Comet painters in the southern hemisphere ;)

2 comments:

Pablo J. Álvarez said...

I see, you like Tamiya paints, I prefer Vallejo for 1/72 scale and his new pigments and washes, but I olso used Tamiya in the past and I like yet.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I am more in the process of converting over as I am building up a stock of the Vallejo paints which I find are excellent

Tamiya I find are good for vehicles but I was never really too happy with their performance on figures

I also tend to use what I have to hand ;)