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mage.
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Home › Forums › Painting in Tabletop Gaming › Help me paint realistic tanks! Please? 8)
I’ve never been a historical, camo or big vehicle painter. I want my dusty black Chimera to look like a Steel Legion one.
(1) I will dtill the gun barrels. Maybe.
(2) I will dust it
(3) I do not own, have access to nor will buy an airbrush.
Thanks in advance! Pics of my own and what I want to achieve (care of google images)
PS: Im looking for something quick, with primers possibly, as I have quite a few Russ tanks to do.
Although this is for 15mm It might work for larger vehicles. Just use different colours of spray cans rather than an airbrush
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2014/05/behind-the-mask/
It may be possible to get a couple of graffiti cans of spray paint. I have two Liquitex cans on my desk just now you can also get a pack of different spray caps which provide a different spray patterns. I have one that provides a thin cone (12 -15mm without it looking too hazy) which would be ok for this.
Possibly in a larger store they may let you try before you buy to ensure you can get the type you need or a website with amazing descriptions)
I just don’t know how you could get that effect quickly without spraying of some kind.
If you are using cans for the base coat, try the Blu Tack masking method to get a defined edge between the two colours;
(Ignore the airbrush, cans will work just as well), then you can wash for shade and dry brush or hard edge for the highlights
I’ve seen done, but not tried myself, getting the camo stripes by basing the major colour in first. Then solid line the other camo stripe colour and using a fairly large drybrush just feathering the edges to get a softer, sprayed on looking, transition.
This guy on Youtube has done a full tank without the use of an airbrush, well you’d use a coloured primer for what he used an airbrush for because he did not have the coloured primers from the likes of Army Painter. Before I got my airbrush I used this as a reference to paint a tank as well. I did the entire base coat with a brush because I did not have coloured primers either, so that’s fully possible too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=163JnEE-mXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5bcHfpJXnk
The original Duncan, of Warhammer TV fame, videos on painting camo do exactly what you want. You just need to change the colours to get your Grey-Yellow scheme which is sort of mid-WW2 German Eastern front. The Cadian camo scheme vaguely represents late-Cold War/contemporary Russian camo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74p9eGwRAog
The weathering up is reasonable enough and doesn’t require much in terms of materials
https://youtu.be/gyuPxJG5kFc?t=2m15s
For the Grey you want you could use GW Mechanics Standard Grey. AP Uniform Grey ( comes as a spray too) is a bit lighter and GW Administratum Grey a shade lighter again. If you want to go for an ‘accurate grey’ take a WW2 German Dunkelgrau from Vallejo. Though in practice it makes little difference if its just about a quick and reasonable paint job once you start washing, dry-brushing and weathering.
These two were airbrushed, but it could easily be done by hand. The Panzer III is in Dunkelgrau while the Panther is a shade lighter (because is smaller) with a paint from Mig Ammo which translates into Administratum Grey.


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