Hi all

Mainly for reasons of economy but also to make it easier to mix different variations of colours to make shading and highlighting easier, I am thinking of going over to tubed artist paint for my modelling.

So to get me started I am in need of some basic colour mixes for the common WW2 military colours that I mainly use.

Any help with these would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Colours needed are

German Field Grey, the later war green/grey
German Dark Yellow, Dunkelgelb
US/UK Olive Drab as used in the late war
British Khaki
British Khaki Drab
Russian 4BO Green

Thanks again for any help with this, just the basic colour mixes needed to get me started.

Paul

Paul, it's not clear to me if you are thinking of oils or acrylics. I have succesfully (I hope...) used Liquitex acrylics to create a Dunkelgelb shade, made mainly of Soft Body Yellow Oxide, to which I added some white and a touch of Hooker's Green Hue. I was able to airbrush this by mixing with a small amount of Liquitex airbrush medium. I also had to filter the paint to prevent clogging the airbrush, though that isn't too difficult, I used a piece of tea bag paper made into a small cone and pushed into the cup of the a/b.

My approach would be to take samples of the colours you want to match - maybe if you have existing paints of those shades - into the artist supply shop, then just pick the nearest colours they have in the range you are interested in, and then make sure you get a few basic mixing colours as well, obviously white and black, probably yellow, blue and red as well. These basic mixing shades you can probably buy cheaper as you may well be able to get a set of them together, and certainly you can buy cheap white for mixing.

I guess it is the case that the basic mixer shades will probably last forever (unless you start painting pictures as well) so although it may be qite a pricey outlay to start with, you may be right that in the long run it may be cheaper.

Hope this is of some help.

I know that the original real 1:1 recipe for Olive Drab is Yellow Ochre and Black. This works with oil paints for our work as well, I've mixed it many times.

Thanks for the replies guys

Matthew I am thinking acrylics

Paul

They often have a how to book by the acrylics on mixing colors. I picked one up for 5 bucks and it got me started on the right foot.

According to 1941 RKKA paint mixing instructions, Protective Green 4BO was a mixture of 40-60% yellow ochre, 15-20% zinc chromate, 10% ultramarine and 10-20% white.

Paul, if you can get Yellow Ochre in acrylic, it's the same mix to get Olive Drab.

Thanks again guys

I even have some yellow ochre already as I use it as part of my fresh mix, so that will save a bit.

Paul

Hi Guys

Just checking re the Yellow Ochre and Black for Olive Drab

Is that for the early War OD or the greener late war OD.

Thanks

Paul

That's for US OD. The color and specs remained the same throughout the war.

Hi

Are you sure about that, I always though at the beginning of the war us olive drab was a very dark almost green brown colour and it changed to a lighter green colour after a year or so, that what I read.

Paul

Yes Paul, I'm sure.

"A number of changes occurred to army Olive Drab paint during the war, though not to the colour itself. According to Ordnance records, a shortage of colour charts in 1942 led to some manufacturers using paint that did not precisely match the Specification 3-1. These vehicles were accepted for service in spite of this cosmetic problem. The problem was brought under control later in 1942 by wider dissemination of the colour specifications and stricter enforcement of Government standards. Scarcity of cadmium pigment led to reformulation of paints in the early war years, though these paints were supposed to stick with the colour established in the 1920 Spec. 3-1. To confuse matters, the Corps of Engineers adopted a parallel set of colour numbers during the war, Olive Drab being called Colour No. 9. This was the same colour as Quartermaster Colour No. 22 of Spec. 3-1.
As part of this process, in January 1943, Major A.I. Totten Jr. of the Army Resources and Production Division proposed to consolidate the two shades of Olive Drab in use at the time, the USAAF dark Olive Drab and the AGF Olive Drab, into a new colour Army/Navy (AN) 319, that was the same colour as the AGF Olive Drab. The Air Force went a bit nuts over this, as in 1942, they had developed a new paint formulation of their dark Olive Drab that would not show up well on infrared film. The AGF Olive Drab paint did not have this characteristic. As a result, the USAAF studiously avoided use of the new 319 Olive Drab. This issue may seem irrelevant to tank modellers. But it is an important issue since it helps demolish a popular myth amongst some modellers and vehicle restorers. A legend has developed over the years that the light 319 Olive Drab was also adopted by the AGF, so that after 1943, the Army began painting their tanks and tactical vehicles in a lighter shade of Olive Drab. This was not the case, as the aeronautical 319 Olive Drab was identical in colour to standard AGF Olive Drab, and was only light in comparison to the USAAF dark Olive Drab." - Steven Zaloga