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My fiance and I went to our LGS to participate in an all-nighter tournament (Montreal ftw!). We didn't get to play, since our army didn't meet the store's criteria, and my buddy didn't show up to supply an army to use. So we watched, and helped with the rules, and enjoyed our time there.

But damn it, my woman; she discovers the joys of camo on tanks.

The guy who owned the army used a dark grey/light grey color scheme, in the pattern of your typical Cadian 8th Tanks. Since we also use dark grey base, she wanted to do the same for our guys. She tried it on a tank at home and was content with it. Unfortunately, I, myself, don't have the bloody knack for this kinda stuff (random, non-homogeneous patterns), and thus my question is:

Is there an easy way to determine and paint camo (in the style of the cadian 8th)?

Google images of tank camo? Modern Military vehicle aren't exactly randomly painted, at least not the US versions, there are patterns that are followed which you might be able to find online.

Otherwise look at old WWII tanks, or even WWI. Or heck, look up Cadian tanks and see what come up.

I know a few of the earlier Imperial Armor books had grat photos of tanks and camo patterns in them as well.

Good luck sir!

The thing to remember with camo is that its designed to obscure the shape of whataver its applied to. In the case of humans it breaks up the face and the head/shoulders and suchlike. For vehicles the idea is to break up the man-made hard lines and sillhouette. Just painting blobs in the middle of plates doesn't work. You need to have the disruptive pattern (the blobs) mixing it up over the corners and edges of armour pates and the vehicle. Best source is a reference book on armoured fighting vehicles, or just google for Tank camouflage.

here are a couple of my schemes that I'm quite pleased with and were based on real-world camo:

Tau urban/mountain


Guard woodland:

GW put up a pretty good article on their website with some good profile pics of Tank camo schemes:
https://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=600003&pIndex=1&aId=2400009&multiPageMode=true&start=2


Realistically, there are 2 basic types of camo.. Vehicular, and personnel. The major differences between them is how they are supposed to work. Vehicle camo, whether on ships, tanks, or artillery pieces aren't designed to obscure, it's designed to confuse the natural eye, and draw it away from itself. Personnel camo is designed, in most cases, to break up the silhouette of the person. With that in mind, as you look at the GW article, think of how those camo schemes would work, or not, in the given environment for where your guardsmen are from.


If you're asking about techniques for painting vehicular camoflage, then depending on your given scheme, there are a number of ways: 1. airbrushing. This would work for "organic" shapes, however can be an expensive option, especially if you dont have the equipment for it already. 2. Freehand. This is the more difficult (IMO) option, depending on your camo scheme, and the only real advice i can give is take your time, and use the normal thin coats, etc. that are always recommended here.

Here's how to do it fast. This guy did it with Duracoat on a pair of rifles, but you could easily do the exact same thing with good ole rattlecan (Krylon) or an airbrush. Just do it on a smaller scale:

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=71788

Some self-explanatory pics:







Basically, spray your base coat the color you want 2nd most dominant. Then mask off some blips and hose your dominant color. Finally, keep masking so you end up with negatives (these will be the splotches) and spray one last time.

Digital camo using stencils:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=6&f=19&t=239628

Awesome, thanks a ton guys!

Blue tac/ poster putty works well for masking off too and it saves cutting out loads of blob shaped bits of tape.

I can't add much to this, because if you're painting cadian 8th the gw one mentioned earlier is probably one of the best tutorials, but i have an example of an alternate scheme.




This is my baneblade camo-scheme, inspired by the British Berlin Brigade, done with an airbrush, but spray paint or a spray gun could do it, technically it could work with a brush, but there is a chance it wouldn't work as well. Base colour was kommando khaki, then masked with a mix of 18mm and 5mm tamiya masking tape in random areas to build up masked off sections, then a layer of graveyard earth, then again masking tape is applied to leave some areas for the last layer of shadow grey, allow to dry and then peel off the masking tape and there you have it. If you're using spray paint you will need to approximate the colours.

If you want fuzzy edges to the camo use an airbrush.

Also, to speed things up, try looking in your local automotive store for grey primer.
I use Halfords and it's very close to Codex Grey!!


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Also to map out the design, draw it on with a pencil first.
Have the turret in place when you do this, but take it off when painting.