I would like to reproduce the late war German disc camo. Any suggestions on how to do this?

The Ushi von der Rosten flexible masks to reproduce the disk schemes on Panthers:

Armorama::DML #6370 Panther Ausf. G with AM-Works PE

Armorama::PzKpfW V 'Panther' Ausf. G, Mid-Sep '44 Production

Other factory patterns can be replicated using the Alliance-Model Works PE stencils:

AM-Works 1/35 Scale Armor Painting Stencils

HTH,

Yep. I've used the Ushi masks and they're pretty good. Service from Ushi was top notch, they didn't charge me extra postage when I ordered 1:48 by mistake.

Just one criticism. I couldn't find a repeat pattern within the masks (perhaps it was there but I just couldn't see it). This made it hard to do a largish area, like the sides of a Panther turret. You know how wallpaper has a repeat pattern so you can seamlessly do a large area, well I couldn't find one in the Ushi masks.

Have fun!

FWIW: I don't believe that the pattern was applied in a "seamless" manner. Those who insist that the pattern edges meet perfectly to create a "wallpaper-like" effect are, IMO incorrect. The amount of time and effort to create a perfect pattern like that does not make any sense from an industrial manufacturing point of view or would it have made the camouflage more effective.

(Note that the Daimler-Benz "spray-dot" pattern does not repeat. The dots are simply sprayed by the painter using his "eye" to judge the spacing, etc. If this somewhat haphazard method was adequate for them, then a less perfect method was surely acceptable for the other factories using masks.)

However, the disk patterns do repeat. This is clearly seen if the photos are closely examined. I think the explanation is actually quite simple.

In order to create a repeating pattern, all you need to do is cut the Ushi mask into a reasonable-sized 1/35-scale piece.

That is, the factory painters would not have used masks that were too large for them to handle easy. I assumed about 1.5 x 1 meter in scale was about as large a mask as could be easily handled by a painter's assistant while the painter sprayed through it.

Also, these masks were probably (again, IMO) fabricated on the spot out. My guess is the painter used three or four different-sized cans to draw the overlapping circles and then just cut out the little "butterflies" with a knife. If this was true, then the effort and time involved in cutting all that out suggests fairly small-sized masks as well as no effort to create a mask that would have edges that would match perfectly creating a "seamless" pattern across the entire tank.

So, I cut a piece of the Ushi mask to about that size and used the same piece to paint my entire Panther. Because I used the same mask over and over, I naturally got the repeating pattern.

I also assumed that the painters were concerned more with getting the job done in a timely manner, so when necessary, I allowed the mask to overlap slightly, or I turned it to fit the space, and I allowed the occasional but of over-spray along its edges.

Anyway, that's how I approached the repeating pattern issue using the Ushi mask.