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Normandy Dirt/Mud Color?
ebergerud
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Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014 - 12:14 PM UTC
Am finishing up a Tamiya Cromwell for the Finescalle D-Day build. I'm going to be concentrating on netting and foliage - both new techniques for me - but certainly common in June 1944 on both sides of the line.

I just spent more money on dried arctic sage than a set of metal tracks.(Of course you can only use the tracks once.)So I would like to get the pigments and mud right. Normandy is fertile and gets a lot of water. I try to think of areas in Minnesota that fit that description and the soil is moist and usually very dark - a dark brown to almost black. All tanks in the field more than a few days are going to pick up dust in good quantity and at least some dense soil (a kind of moist mud maybe). Any advice on what colors or texture of soils one might find in Normandy?
Eric
Frenchy
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Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014 - 08:10 PM UTC
Just a few examples

Mud :







Dust :




H.P.
ebergerud
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Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014 - 09:24 PM UTC
I was using Google earth (which is very strange software - not sure if I like the idea) and checked out the area around Villers-Bocage and the earth struck me as a little lighter than I'd expected. (Of course it isn't June.) You pictures confirm it. (MIG's European Earth pigment looks right on the money.) I would have made it a little more gray and darker. But this looks right.

Merci
Eric
marcb
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Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014 - 10:37 PM UTC
Great pics!
Thanks for posting.
Frenchy
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Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014 - 11:35 PM UTC
A few more muddy pics from Normandy here :

http://www.basse-normandie-4x4.com/t90p45-1er-rassemblement-du-forum-basse-normandie-4x4

This website belongs to a Norman 4x4 owners club

H.P.
tankmodeler
#417
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Posted: Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 01:56 AM UTC
Looks like an almost perfect match for the British SCC2 Brown colour! :-)
Removed by original poster on 09/04/17 - 13:21:21 (GMT).
165thspc
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Posted: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 - 07:24 PM UTC
Normandy is farming country so actually I would have expected a darker, richer, black earth - more like the wet mud you are seeing in the bogged down Norman 4x4 club photos.

Thanks Frenchy
bill_c
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MODEL SHIPWRIGHTS
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Posted: Wednesday, September 06, 2017 - 09:12 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Normandy is farming country so actually I would have expected a darker, richer, black earth - more like the wet mud you are seeing in the bogged down Norman 4x4 club photos. Frenchy


Yes, but when hundreds or even thousands of feet, tires and tracks run through a dirt road, for example, it turns to dust.
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