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Hey everyone! Currently working on my tanks for my Cadia AM army. Im using an airbrush for the first time through all this so my highlights might not be perfect but just know it’s a learning experience. I would like to get some advice on my camo pattern as I’m also new to that as well. I feel like this isn’t working, any advice on what to charge would be appreciated.

Side note: I wasn’t aiming for any particular pattern just messing around and trying to make my own style. I suppose it’s somewhat influenced on tiger stripes?

Camo works by disrupting shapes and disguising obviously man made silhouettes. I think you have a great start here but maybe try to get the patterns to cover more of the corners and edges. There Ilis a lot of pattern in the middle of plates and not quite enough over edges.

Also i have found adding a 3rd colour, even in very small amounts helps make it more pleasing to the eye. Kind of light shading and highlights do for flat colours, having a range of 3 colours in the pattern looks nice to me

Reminds me of Tiger Stripe Camo.

A 3rd colour... perhaps a dark one would be good... Dark Reaper, Black, a very dark green or a dark brown.

Good work!

Thanks for the advice form both of you. I can definitely work some black into it, as it’s another color present on my Troops.

I didn’t realize it but I did avoid the edges unintentionally. I will toy around with adding some tonight and see how it goes!

coganaut,

Tiger stripes on an animal to help it blend in are fuzzy as they transition between colours, so that might be an option with your airbrush to make a more organic look. The sharp edge contrast works better with camo patterns for dazzle schemes with weird shapes to break up the silhouette.

My two cents,

CB

Here is a comparison between my Guard scheme done by brush with hard edging and with rather poorly controlled airbrush, if that helps.get the idea across.



And then a cleaned upnversion where I went back and hardened up the edging 9f the disruptive pattern and back filled with a bit more black.

I'm definately not saying its.perfect camo.scheme but I think it gets the idea across and I find the colours pleasing

You could also keep it super simple:

Base coat olive green
Airbrush centers of panels with a slightly lighter green
Airbrush panel lines, seams, and shadow areas with a slightly darker green
Mr. Color Super Clear
Wash with Tamiya Panel Liner Dark Brown; ensure you get good coverage in panel lines and use q-tips to adjust weathering level on panels
Matte Clear

It's not as sexy as a full on camo paint job, but it's really quick, will look great, and will show off the detail of the model.


***Also, future tip: it's easiest to paint the tracks separately whether by airbrush or spray can, then add them after the model has been painted.

Small note, but keep in mind working camo will also break up the shape of your models, which will make them look less nice and work against your shades and highlights. I'd consider a few extensions of the tigerstripe across corners, but I think it looks plenty good as is.

Vejut wrote:
Small note, but keep in mind working camo will also break up the shape of your models, which will make them look less nice and work against your shades and highlights. I'd consider a few extensions of the tigerstripe across corners, but I think it looks plenty good as is.

When I do camo I tend to use colors with high contrast for precisely this reason - real life camo is supposed to make the camougflaged object harder to see and you want your minis to stand out.

IMO the stripes look well executed but spread out a bit. I'd add a third color - probably a reddish brown color or maybe a dark rust red.

Spread out stripes, as others have said.

The tiger scheme works a bit better with more, smaller stripes.

A thn ink wash or filter wash can bring discordant colours together and soften them.

Mud does something similar - Typhus Corrosion then drybrush XV-88 for a simple mud effect

Echo above. The biggest issue I see is you just have your camo on the flat parts.

It helps to look at actual camo patterns, pick one you like and mimic it.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/200193-italian-tanks-and-military-vehicles/page__st__6400

You can do anything from 2-4 color camo as I have seen.
2 color is fine, I actually did something similar to yours, Dunkelgelb (yellow) and Olivgran (green) modulation.

A few things:

Get a filter paint for green tanks. Airbrushing a filter will help blend/tie the scheme together. Take a look at AK INteractive or MiG paints.

Look at some of Hersey brush guides. He specializes in painting armor.
https://www.heresybrush.com/en/guides/

Nice higlights/modulation for first attempt. Definitely recommend doing this as it helps create contrast on an otherwise flat model.

Here is my Leman Russ. Yes I know the sponson is crooked because of the magnet But this should give you an idea of a 2 tone paint scheme (with filter) and weathering.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/athkjv/pask_in_a_punisher_fully_magnatized/

As others have mentioned you can do 3 colors or even 4 (look at some WW1/2 tanks of various armies.

I really like the Camo pattern! You could do what other have said by putting another colour in so the stripes arnt too distanced but if you like it as is keep it that way they look cool.