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So, as many of you know, I'm a foot guard commander. One of the reasons for this (other than the fact that I don't own an airbrush) is that I can't think of a good way to paint up my vehicles. With my first army, I started with a vehicle, and wound up with a paint scheme that looked terrible on infantry. With my guard army, I started with a scheme that looked good on infantry, and, unfortunately, it winds up looking cruddy on tanks.

So, firstly, here are my infantry:





And my ogryn:



So with the infantry, I'm rocking the brown and white. It turns out, though, that this doesn't all that well translate to vehicles. Here are my attempts so far:









My first problem with the brown and white is that it doesn't look terribly realistic. I mean, who would actually paint their tanks like that? Secondly, the model is so colorful and sort of patchwork that there's no way I can do weathering on it. Thirdly, while it may look reasonably nice on the chimera chassis, there is no way I'm going to be able to have a russ with this scheme, as it doesn't have the same sidewalls. Likewise, it only looks so-so on sentinels.

I've been thinking of ways to come up with a better scheme, but I'm stuck. One option is to go with vehicles that are just brown. The problem with this is that an all-dark color is going to obscure detail, including weathering. Plus, I'd probably want to have the bottom be yellow-dusty, which will look sort of strange. Another option I could go with is an all white, or a white with grey camo, like on the side. You can also see it on some other people's schemes.



But my problem with this is that if I do the color too light (like on the side of my vehicles currently), the pattern will look like snow camo, and if it's too dark, it will wind up being a grey tank in a brown and white army. The same is true of a flat battleship grey color, which would show weathering and detail very, very well, but also doesn't look like it would fit well with the army as a whole, and I'm a little loathe to make the tanks just a white color. Along the same lines, there are lots of other desert camo schemes out there that would make sense, with me having desert colors, but the tanks won't look like part of the army, which, if you haven't gathered by now, is really important.

I've been back and forth over this, and haven't come to any closer of a conclusion. Any input?

I don't think the vehicles look that bad - I kind of like the ruddy brown. The manticore and basilisk especially just has the whiff of white on the bottom, I like that. I think keeping the white as a minimal camo paint is ok, but where you've done half of the sent or the earthshaker cannon white, it's probably too much. Why not some more black? In fact, your guys look pretty good next to that black rhino. If you don't want all brown, why not black vehicles, with white and ruddy brown for accents? Just some thoughts.

I like them actually.

It looks fine. I think what you just need is a splash color. I'm thinking gold or brass: both are not so far out your color scheme, they're both metallic so they'll work well with vehicles and it would break down the big flat surfaces of color.

You could try silver or boltgun metal. I know it sounds stupid, but think of it like heraldry colors. Since knights couldn't male super or gold cloth they used white to represent silver and yellow to represent gold. On vehicles like knights armour and plate, you could use the metallics, where on your troops you use the colors.

Just my 2cents.

Army looks awesome by the way.

So, the chimera chassis has been made to look good enough, I guess, but as you can see from the sentinels, the flat panneling looks kind of dumb, and you'll notice that I didn't put up a picture of a russ because in all my years with guard I haven't gotten to painting one, specifically because, sans side pannels, there isn't a way to do the brown and white scheme...

One suggestion that I would have, is that in my opinion your guard infantrymen look like they are desert fighters, used to open sands and the like, though they are something more like Colonial British troops in Africa or something like that (but in space).. So with that, their white "tropical" uniforms, I think, would go well with a desert yellow sort of scheme on the vehicles.

It's the most obvious way to do a desert scheme, yes, but there's absolutely nothing yellow about the infantry.

Ailaros wrote:So, the chimera chassis has been made to look good enough, I guess, but as you can see from the sentinels, the flat panneling looks kind of dumb, and you'll notice that I didn't put up a picture of a russ because in all my years with guard I haven't gotten to painting one, specifically because, sans side pannels, there isn't a way to do the brown and white scheme...

Ensis Ferrae wrote:One suggestion that I would have, is that in my opinion your guard infantrymen look like they are desert fighters, used to open sands and the like, though they are something more like Colonial British troops in Africa or something like that (but in space).. So with that, their white "tropical" uniforms, I think, would go well with a desert yellow sort of scheme on the vehicles.

That's a good idea too, Ensis. Yellow or black, you could pick a colour that vehicles look good as, and use white for camo and brown for markings/accents. Just a little bit of that brown and it will be noticable.

Ailaros wrote:It's the most obvious way to do a desert scheme, yes, but there's absolutely nothing yellow about the infantry.

I think a yellowish desert scheme might actually look pretty good with your infantry. And you do actually have yellow in your infantry, and it's the base.

I think something like this might truly be the way to go for your army:



Or something like this:



If I was not at work I would try to do some photoshopping to see how it would look with your army. I think having a yellow desert camo that is farily conservative would mesh pretty good with your infantry. I wouldn't go with a crazy wild pattern, and if you can get the yellow to be pretty close with your bases it would be the one thing that really ties your infantry to the army.

I would do the weapons in the same colors and style that you painted your heavy weapons, and then quite possibly use the red/white colors that are the primary colors of your infantry as splash colors on the tank, or even tank company markings. I think having the weapons painted the same as your regular guys and having the colors of the infantry represented as company markings would be the biggest deal maker.



That would end up with:

Infantry: Lots of red/white, with enough sand/yellow on the bases to make clear it is a desert army.

Mech: Mostly desert camo, with enough red/white to tie it back to your army.

My $0.02. I know you have mixed feelings about a desert scheme, but I think it would work. In the end of course it is your army, and if you like it then feth everyone else (including me )

I like the desert yellow idea, however, I also like the brown that you have. I'd cut out the white for the vehicles though.

What I think is missing in the current scheme is a little shading and highlighting. This isn't going to obscure any detail. If anything it should bring it out. Atm I just think the brown looks 'flat' on your vehicles.

Even just a few layers of drybrushing with a tone derivative of that brown will really breakup those large areas if you don't want to invest alot of time.

The vehicles look all right, they just need something to break up the brown I think. Something like this I think:

I think that you just need to darken everything with washes etc.

I agree with other posters and think that your vehicles would be painted more to suit the environment they are in, rather than to match the uniform of the soldiers. So a desert scheme might be the way to go but pick out key details with the metalic and terracota type colours you use on your infranty.

It might be a lot of work to paint up a test tank so why not try and find pictures of tanks, take them into Photoshop (or GIMP for free) cleanup the image so you just have the tank, do the same with some of your infrantry, combine them together then just start messing about with colour sliders for the tank layer. That might be a fairly quick way to give you an idea of what schemes would mesh well, providing you can use the programs mentioned.