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This tutorial is about painting camo scheme on models. This technique fits well for vehicles and infantry models alike.

First off we have Tau Piranha assembled and primed black, that I will use to demonstrate the technique. Crew and drones are not glued on yet.



We start by painting large areas of green. I used Vallejo Catayan green for this (Citadel Catachan green is fine too) for the painted areas I always tried to paint them in some direction (like diagonally here) This IMO makes the model more dynamic. Use fairly large brush (Citadel standard brush for example) here and for the next few phases, as it speeds up your work. And after the next two steps, be sure to have some black still showing.





Second phase is to paint similar brown areas. I used Vallejo Earth brown (Citadel version is Graveyard earth)





Third phase is to paint smaller patches with Vallejo Khaki (Citadel Kommando khaki) Paint them on areas where two other colours meet (for example where black and brown connects)





Now we have big areas roughly formed. You might want to paint these with couple of coats to get smooth covering. After this switch to smaller brush (Citadel fine detail for example) and paint more complex patterns to each colours edge. This may sound like it would take lots of time but give it a shot, and really try to be random with the patterns, don’t over plan them. Second, try stick with the original larger area so that you don’t have paint that much with a small brush. If some paint slips, just paint it over in the next colours phase.









Now I have mixed some Vallejo Bone white to each colour (about 1-2 parts of bone white and 9-8 parts of the original colour) to get a lighter tone of them. Now paint a stripe of the lighter shade to each area. Don’t try to paint it like a highlight, just roughly paint it according the area. IMO highlighting the camo pattern like you traditionally do some other models is way too time consuming and gets the already busy pattern way too busy. It’s also very hard to do in infantry sized models.
After this, you might want to tidy small mistakes with some black paint.





Next up is the weathering. I have skipped a bit as I want to do the weathering for whole model same time. I have couple of general notes on weathering the camo. Don’t paint any large chippings on the camo as it already has large complex areas (chippings sort of), the chippings wouldn’t stand out that much. And the reason why I am talking about weathering in camo painting tutorial is that I feel it necessary to do some weathering on this scheme. This way the colours won’t stay just flat surfaces but get some movement on them.

First I have painted the piranha with thinned down coat of Devlan Mud (I just love that stuff)





After this I painted stripes with Devlan Mud and Vallejo Smoke Ink. Try to paint the stripes in certain direction. I have painted them going from the front to the back. After this I added yet couple stripes with Badab Black





Next I added some chipping, dark areas with light grey’s (Vallejo Medium grey, Stonewall grey) and lighter areas with black and dark greys





Some burn marks and oil streaks were added by using Mig pigments Black smoke (You might want to do this after varnishing)





This is it pretty much. I added few pics of the finished model in here. You can check out other examples of this technique from my Tau army at here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/216076.page

Finished model:





Cheers,

I am in awe, my good sir.
I love it!
And I will be using your techniques for working on my Guard
Heck, maybe even my Tau.

You 'll win the May tutorial contest!

soooo good T-T

Lets think about this here.


Tons of new guard players just starting, all want to know how to paint camo, you go ahead and post one of the best camo tut's ive ever seen right here on dakka.

i think you deserve an award for this

Sweet. I had been looking for a good camo tutorial, and here it is.

Did you use the same technique on the troops choices as well? And if so, could I see a picture of one of those minis?

Also, just some random questions here since you seem to be the camo pro

1: would it be possible to use the same layout to paint urban? if so would it be possible to do a colour change list? (ie, change the brown for whatever grey etc etc)

2: very random, but things like red and blue tiger camo have no real use in the real world as they provide no advantage, however in 40k its very possible it would help, any ideas on how to go about this?

3: digital camo, the bain of my life, ive tried to paint this before and after 8 hours on a rhino it looked like gak, any tips?


sorry for all the questions, but its rare to see someone who can paint camo to this kind of standard

3: digital camo, the bain of my life, ive tried to paint this before and after 8 hours on a rhino it looked like gak, any tips?

Small geometric designs cut up from a thin sponge work well for tanks. Infantry would be difficult for this though. I've seen a few internet tutorials however, where people have dipped the corner of a piece of card into paint and then used it to etch straight lines. It comes out well if you're careful with the amount of paint you use.

thanks

1st way i did it was using small pieces of card (cut to a rough squared like shape) tacked to the rhino all over, slowly taking them off and moving them as i changed colour of spray.

UCPesmerga: Shure, check this link, there's the rest of my army http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/216076.page

For infantry, just paint the pattern smaller.

JD21290 wrote:Also, just some random questions here since you seem to be the camo pro

1: would it be possible to use the same layout to paint urban? if so would it be possible to do a colour change list? (ie, change the brown for whatever grey etc etc)

2: very random, but things like red and blue tiger camo have no real use in the real world as they provide no advantage, however in 40k its very possible it would help, any ideas on how to go about this?

3: digital camo, the bain of my life, ive tried to paint this before and after 8 hours on a rhino it looked like gak, any tips?


sorry for all the questions, but its rare to see someone who can paint camo to this kind of standard

No problem JD

1 Certainly, I haven't tried it but could/should work.

2 Certainly again, it would be nice to see somebody do something totally OT with this kind of camo

3 Have been toying with the idea, but at army scale haven't figured out yet any real solutions. With brush it's quite hard to do the sharp corners that the digi pattern requires :( so the quest continues


Automatically Appended Next Post:
....But that card thingy could work. If you just did the out lines with the card and then filled the area with brush. Thou infantry and other organic forms could be a bit problem.

Here's a link to a Wikipedia page on CADPAT. There's a nice picture of a big square of the pattern on the top right. You could print that off for referance if it'll help your quest for Digital Urban Camo. Just do a colour swap

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CADPAT

Enjoy!

Hey Jussi - good tutorial man!!! Nice way to cap of the graduation too and putting the learned skills to good use with fellow hobbyists.

Great work!

Thanks northern, had an idea here, not 100% if it will work until i get a chance to try though

as with painting digital camo you get loads of problems, today i picked up a few rubber brushes, im going to trim away at the end of them with a blade to try and make a square, allmost like a stamp.
with any luck it should be possible to do it this way.

Migs: Thanks mate. Yep, you realy learn stuff that are useful hobbywise too

JD: Good luck, be shure to post results.

Thanks northern, had an idea here, not 100% if it will work until i get a chance to try though

as with painting digital camo you get loads of problems, today i picked up a few rubber brushes, im going to trim away at the end of them with a blade to try and make a square, allmost like a stamp.
with any luck it should be possible to do it this way.

Try cutting a few different patterns into them as well. The odd horizontal or vertical line here and there, maybe two verticals connected by a horizontal, an L corner, a T corner, etc...

Most digital camo is more than a collection of squares. In the case of CADPAT, the camo is kind of a partial tiger stripe. AMPAT (Or whatever yanks call their army issue Digital) and MARPAT, the pattern is a solid tiger-stripe style with Digitized edges. In the Phillipines, China, and other Pacific and Oriental nations, the camo is arranged more as blotches or dabs with Digital edging. In Europe, a combination of the two styles (Stripes and blotches), or a 2 - directional tiger pattern (Stripes going both horizontal and vertical) are often used. In 40K, some digital patterns, such as the one once used by the Red Scorpions Chapter, is little more than a series of triangles and stars. So it's really up to you to decide as to what "style" of Digital Camo you want to use, or even if you want to follow real-world examples.

This is defo best tutorial and that is why i voted for it!!

May I just say thank you for this Tut - I've been looking for help on how to paint camo and this was excellent! Simple and easy to follow with good pictures to detail it!

So, Thank you VERY much!

Also, to mods, sorry for necro'ing the thread - but this was helpful enough for me to warrant thanking the poster!

that is a fabuolous colour scheme!

that is a fabuolous colour scheme

Awesome tut

This is GREAT!

I have EXALTED this thread

Now this is awesome! I think I'll be using this for some aircraft of mine...

Top drawer work there.

I do like that gritty look you gave it!

Aha! A good camo painting tutorial... Thank you sir for much helpfulness

Exalted.

Sweet. I just gave camo a go for the first time with my new Kommandos unit. I see how I can make better camo for my sneakin' Boyz already. Thanks!

Very nice and comprehensive. Non-model pics help painting tutorials a ton, wish more people did it that way!

Wow, it's been a while from last visit to this blog.

Very glad to see people still find it useful. Best kind of feedback for tutorials.

And let's see if the Tau rumors are true, I might be painting more of these guys next year.

Thanks all!