Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello guys, Im playing a latewar german panzergrenadier company. Today I just received my first shipment of goods. I assembled a few of them and realized that their camouflage is almost impossible to paint with just normal brush. So I was thinking of getting an airbrush. After doing some research on the internet. I was SHOCKED by the the price and a few people on forums said that "You'll BREAK your first airbrush". This really troubles me, because I really want my army to look nice. Does anyone have any recommendation, or even painting technique for camouflage?

I did indeed break my first airbrush, blasted the air out at about 50psi and snapped the nozzle. I took it back to the shop and feigned innocence and they gave me a new one (which i also later broke). If you shop around you can find a decent deal that includes the compressor, watertrap and brush for around £90. Once you get the hang of it, it's brilliant. Completely worth the initial entry price. I'd never go back to the old method, painted up 15 FoW tanks in excellent looking German tri-colour in a weekend. Everyone talks about how long it takes to master but unless you're a true cretin it's not a steep learning curve at all, actually quite enjoyable and the brush does all the work for you. Only problem is thinning the paint which is a trial and error affair. Really can't recommend them enough!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is one of the best tutorials ive ever seen for airbrushing German tanks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6BOxeFeN0

Get a Badger and you get lifetime warranty so you will always get it back working. Plus they probably have the best bang for the buck at the moment.

Airbrushes....(pardon my french) piss paint. I mean they literal consume it, even if you thin it. Doing a batch of miniatures becomes an endeavor of paint matching, because even if you think you've mixed enough, you haven't!

If you are doing tank camo or whatever it's great and easy to learn, if you want to do super detail work and intricate detail it will take time. Doing FOW tanks is a doddle with an Airbrush, 40k tanks consume a paint pot per tank. Vallejo Air paints are great, and the panzer aces series is great. My one piece of advice is to do all your armour in one go and you will get a nice homogeneous looking tank company.

There is no way you can airbrush Camo on infantry. I have painted Camo on tanks using a brush, the key points are to thin your paints with flow improver and thinner. Why? To avoid ridges and brush marks, I did these with a medium size Army painter brush.



So you can do it with a brush, just thin your paints right down and have the pattern you want on the screen in front of you.

Infantry are best done with a Coloured primer and then their details hinted at. I did these Brit Para's using Brown Fur Army painter colour primer then used a fine detail brush to hint at details, and then use dry brushing and washes.





It's impressionism I go for, not detail, the human eye is very good at filling in detail. This picture is Macro (bigger than the model) so you see all the errors (Note I do need to brush them to get rid of the bits from the base that have got everywhere!).

I broke mine within 15 minutes, due to a cheap join on the regulator, which refused to stay at 20psi. . Zip ties and jubilee clips fixed that, and now it won't do anything BUT 20psi.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@mwinciboo ... Oh those are YOURS. I still have that page open on my browser from two nights ago lol.

Thanks for the comments and advises guys. @mwnciboo, WOW Im really impressed by the camouflage you did on your tanks, is there by anyway for you to host a painting guide or provide the camouflage patterns of your tanks. I really like the camouflage and really want to know how you created those camouflage. Because while I was doing research on the internet, I noticed that most of the camouflage done by brush arent as smooth as the ones you did. Can you share the secret in details? =)

I went on Google, and had a look at Camo's. Okay 1st off what are you painting? Panzergrenadiers...

Lets do Panzer IV, because it's a stock German Tank..

I went on google images, and entered Panzer Camo. Bingo lots of options. Using this one.



First thing to do is buy a Panzer IV, assemble it and then undercoat it. Black Primer or Auto-primer (the grey stuff) is good.

Next I paint on the Dunkelgelb (The Yellow Base colour) every Painter has his own take on this. I personally use Vallejo -Panzer Series- Middlestone (70882). I thin it with a drop of water and a drop of daler-rowney Flow Enhancer. I give the model 2 -3 coats (usually 3 light coats). Then I let it dry for 24 hours.



This picture is just to show the process and is a STuG.

The key to getting nice Camo painted with a brush is thin paint, but not too thin as it will run. I find Vallejo Glaze medium is awesome, i add a single drop and mix it in with a single drop of water to 3 drops of paint. For the brown I used GW Calthan Brown and the green was FOW Russian Uniform 924.

The technique is key dip your brush in the paint, then paint 1-2 lines on a paper towel this will draw out 50% of the paint off the brush. Your brush should now be loaded with paint but not overloaded and therefore the paint will not run. Then paint nice smooth lines in accordance with your pattern (e.g following the example above).

Once done, I would then varnish the model, then apply decals. Dry brush with a bone colour, and then dullcote/ Matt varnish to finish. The key is thinned paint and don't overload the brush.

If you have a specific formation/ Regiment / Division you can get some nice approximations of their colour schemes from OSPREY books. The problem being Colour Photography wasn't too common in WWII. Personally I would love to see you do a Canadian Division, those boys were mega tough, the only Formation that really scared the Germans (The Kiwi's, Aussies and Gurka's will kick up a fuss now I said that).