Hey guys. So I've recently airbrushed my 1/35 Tamiya Jagdtiger its base coat Dunkelgelb. But I'm having trouble painting an actual camo on it (all my other models are either still on their basecoat or painted over white for winter camo). This is my first time painting an actual camo pattern on my model. I've read up on camo painting techniques on the net, but I'm pretty damn nervous to apply them myself So with that, what can I use to "trace" the pattern before I paint it? Is a pencil safe? Or should I use blu-tack/silly putty to mask the whole thing? Any useful advice and constructive advice would be very appreciated.

Also, the paints I am currently working with are Tamiya enamel because, well, they are what I've got right now.

You have a few options here in terms of masking or using a guide. And I will try to explain them here

Using a mask- German camo is "soft edge" meaning the demarcation between colors is soft, not sharp. That is to say, it is NOT like the transition of colors of a piece of paper on a table. This means that the mask you use needs to have its edges lifted off the surface. Blue- tack, sticky-tack, or whatever poster hanging gel that is available to you will work. You would have to apply the stuff on the paint color you want that spot to remain. I personally do not like to use because I find the results to look unnatural

You could also use a pencil to lightly draw thaw pattern on your model. Make sure you are VERY light with your touch, as being to heavy would take many layers of paint to cover. I'm not a fan on this method either, as I like to jeep my camo lines translucent and all the drawn lines confuses me

I recommend doing your camo freehand. With practice, you can create very natural looking camo. Keep in mind that the only way you will get better at spraying camo is by doing it!

Viktor;

Hi! OK... Camo... You have choices and options!

Ultimately, as Jon said, you just need to jump in and practice. It's paint. IF you don't like what you get the first time, just start over and do something different.

With a little practice, you'll master any number of approaches to get the effects you want.

Here's an example of a NEW technique I just tried out for the first time - masking with thinly-rolled "tacky" to create a hard-edge tricolor scheme (Finnish BT-42). First go with this. (I have quite a bit of free-hand AB experience - but wanted hard-edge with a sprayed-on finish, so...). And BTW, this went pretty fast - a 1-hour session of masking and spraying for camo color A, and another for camo color B...



There were of course a couple of places where I needed to touch up and redo a couple of missed lines...

With practice and patience and a good AB, you can do some tiny stuff and all sorts of free-hand tricks... Consider this Tristar 1/35 Flak 38 (a tiny kit) done free-hand...



The point is - Just jump in and try stuff out! After a few bloopers, you'll be getting what you want and enjoying it!

Bob

Bob-- would you expand on your use of the tacky tape? The lines on the example are superbly aligned.
Appreciate your assistance
DJ

Jon: so that's more or less a +1 for masking, and a definite +1 for freehand camo. Will take note of both. Thanks, man!

Bob: definite +1s for masking and then freehand. That's a nice clean finish you have on the BT-42, despite the mistakes you said you made. And that FlaK 38, superb work. I like the weathered look. Also, you mentioned you used "thinly-rolled tack" for your BT. Does the thickness of the "tack" mask determine what kind of edge I will get for the paint?

[quote]German camo is "soft edge" meaning the demarcation between colors is soft, not sharp.quote]

That's a bit of a generalisation not really borne out in the photographic record. While most schemes were sprayed (quicker), not all have soft edges, particularly some of the late war factory schemes in which masks appear to have been used for consistency between vehicles. Obviously there are also the occasional unit-applied schemes for which brushes appear to have been used, although Werkstatt units (who camouflaged vehciles at unit level) would normally use spray-painting as they had the necessary air compressors.

DJ, Viktor;

I'll not be uselessly humble, here ( ): after a bit of tweaking of a few lines and meets (the mistakes made along the way as I left a few edges under-"cleaned" and poorly-positioned), the BT-42 paint job came out pretty close to the scheme-map provided by Tamiya (it's the Tamiya kit). I DID leave off one "lobe" of brown... so there is frankly a missing piece in the scheme, but pretty much all the other lines are reasonably close to what Tamiya shows in their diagram, and - important to you "hard-edge" fans - almost all are actually very tight.

There are several approaches to masking a paint-scheme. In my case, I "built" my scheme from a base-coat followed by masking on two camo colors in turn. So, my approach is the "additive" one. Another technique many use is to build a complete tape mask "matrix" and paint the tank in complete layers and remove portions and paint again and remove more portions, etc. My approach gets a base-coat and one camo coat only onto any part of the tank.

Here's how I did the BT:

I used Testor's ModelMaster enamels - but any acryls will work at least as well.

I used the cheap kind of "tacky gum" from HobbyLobby. You'll need a fairly fresh packet - avoid dried-out tacky which will cross you badly when you try to make a smooth and tight edge. I put mine in a baggie in a bowl of warm water to warm and soften it a little while keeping it water-free. Knead tacky until pretty soft and pliable. Form softened tacky into a thin rope ca 1/8 - 3/16 inch diam...

1) Base-coat your vehicle. 2) Identify the locations of first camo color on the kit. You can mark the patch pattern with pencil... IF you have a map (like Tamiya's), STUDY your map and keep on hand as you apply the mask. 3) Form the masking sheet (ribbon) by squishing this rope out to form a thin strip ca 1/2 inch wide - the fingers do the work. 4) Apply the ribbon to your kit to OUTLINE paint areas. Use small sections - up to 2 inch long maybe - to keep this easy and controllable. Ribbon pieces overlap nicely, so... Stick the ribbon on LIGHTLY - no need to press it down hard! Form (bend in) the major curves into your ribbon in your hand as you go, and follow the curves penciled onto the kit. Lay the ribbon onto the kit to conform to the OUTSIDE of your pencil lines - you will fill OVER these lines and within them with camo color: "paint over the lines". 5) Be sure to fold or bend ribbon down into all corners and angle-joins as you go. 6) Follow the ribbon - application with a "clean-up" of all edges using a small knife or piece os styrene card - carefully press down all edges to eliminate "overhangs" where paint gets under masking, and to clean up and smooth out all those tiny cracks and divets to make the tight edge you want. This is the CRITICAL masking step! Make sure your tacky is pressed down and cleanly edged into the cracks and folds (down around those fender bins and corners and such). Do this right, and you get the tight, clean pattern you seek.

7) Mask several patches at a run, but NOT the entire camo color "A" masking all at once... (this goes quickly, and in a complex scheme, too much tacky around your kit will over-lap other places you wanted to paint camo A and also get very confusing - at least it does to me! ). Do NOT bother trying to press down all the tacky sheet - it's ONLY the edge which matters!

8) Spray the insides of the masked areas.

9) Remove the tacky as soon as the paint is no longer wet-looking. Re-ball the tacky and make more rope for your next patches!

Tips: Detail features... Tacky will fit over most detail bits - even small PE - The THINNER your ribbon, the easier (and safer) this fit will be. Have the sheet warm and pliable and make little folds as needed to cover over the details. Avoid pressing tacky onto kits more than needed to get it to gently stick - the less the sticky bond, the less potential damage to the base coat. When spraying, keep the AB perpendicular to the surface - paint "straight down" - specially critical when painting around those details you formed the tacky up and over. This means less paint being pushed under possibly "loose" edges and less feathering and run (treat tacky mask like it is a stencil...). Keep your air pressure down and a light touch on the trigger... NO BLASTS of paint, please! Spray LIGHTLY and avoid wet-paint build-up along edges. 2 AB passes with a little dry-time between is MUCH better than 1 heavy pass. Try to avoid spraying more paint onto tacky than you need to actually get the edge. Paint will "foul" the tacky and cut its life short! Remove tacky as soon as you can handle the kit - less tacky-time means less potential to damage the base-coats.

Once all of camo A is done, pencil in camo B pattern, and follow the steps above. Be CAREFUL here, as you will probably be applying tacky mask over previous camo A areas to make contact lines between camo A and B patches - so the first patches need to be fully-dried before you stick tacky onto them. I separated my color runs by a few hours to allow the first color to dry fairly well before masking onto it for the second color.

Sorry if this is long-winded! I am trying to be pretty complete: Masking and spraying is a detailed process and you want to know all the steps and do them. It is actually very easy and quick once you try it.

Hint: We are all (rightly so, in my case ) nervous when we first try something. So... Mask a little pattern on the bottom of your kit and give this a test run!

It'll be fun! Honest! Go. Try it out. ENJOY!

Bob

Nice explanation, Bob.

I like the idea of warming and rolling the tacky into thin ribbons before applying it. That makes a lot of sense.

Cheers!

Just load your airbrush & spray it lol! Use thin paint, low air pressure. Holding your airbrush close will give you sharper edges, holding your airbrush farther away will give you feathered edges.
Since it's your first time, I would suggest just using dark green over your base color. Try this pattern, like the picture below.Then, when your comfortable, do another model with 3 colors by adding red brown.
Spray it free hand.
Then later, buy silly putty at the dollar store, try using this as a camo technique.

That's a nice new way I learned how to do camo .

Bob Woodman--- superb!
Many thanks
DJ

Hi all

While we're chipping in with techniques:-





I found a picture of the camo I wanted to reproduce. Then I measured the length of the model in millimeters using a ruler. I also measured the length of the photo. Then I divided the model length by that of the picture and multiplied by 100. This gave me percentage I needed to increase the picture size to be exactly the same as the model. I then used a colour photocopier to scale up the picture - I seem to remember I needed to increase the size to 156%.

I used the picture to cut out small paper masks which hand held in place while spraying.

To finish the puzzle camo I used a black Staedtler fine permanent marker to outline.



I was quite pleased with the camo - but not the weathering which went a little wrong. (Thanks Bob for your help on the marker contortion technique).

nice!

VERY COOL job on the Bis, Andy! Loved first time you posted it, still think it's just a great job, and good use of yet another technique!

Long as we're all having good, clean, old-fashioned pattern-fun here

Here's a free-hand spray job - with black enamel lines (over black marker) to delineate things "in the French way" job I wrestled through on my old Heller R-35 build... You gotta find your fun where you can!



Just try stuff out and see what the other guys have done and go from there!

Bob

I'm curious. Were camo patterns painted at German factories? Or, were they applied by 18 year old Wehrmacht newbies in the field?

The quick answer is "BOTH"!

For example, pre-Poland 1939, tanks were supplied from the factory in straight dark gray, while regulations called for tanks to be painted 1/3 brown over 2/3 gray... each unit had a paint budget and procured brown paint "from the economy" and crew applied this. To save money, the unit paint budget was dropped after Poland - the brown-over-gray regs still remained in place until July 1940, and factories still shipped all vehicles in straight dunkelgrau...! But there was little or no unit-added brown going on after about April 1940... (hence some newer vehicles in France 1940 were straight dunkelgrau, even though the regs called for all to be brown over gray!).

When dunkelgelb became the official base-coat in early 1943, units and crew were issued paint-concentrate in brown and green to apply the called-for camo. Units apparently exercised varying degrees of standardization of camo patterns, and some camo was surely applied in rear-area unit shops - but tanks came with air-compressors and spray guns and crew often did their own whenever opportunity came about. Hence the huge variation in German mid-war and later-war camo patterns. There was no official pattern sent out...

Later in the war - 1944+ - factories were directed in some cases to develop and apply standard factory camo schemes. This happened with "Hetzers" made in Czechoslovakia as seen in late war factory photos, and probably also happened with some Pz IV H and J and maybe also with some Panthers... The degree to which factory-applied camo held has been a frequent discussion on this and other sites!

So... chances are, many German tankers had an opportunity to practice their painting skills (or lack thereof)!

Bob

Thanks, Bob.

It's good to know that I've been non-consciously trying to recreate "heck job" camo patterns done by Wehrmacht newbies!

I would be very careful with Silly Putty. I've tried it; it works well, but it also tends to lift off small PE bits . Maybe attach small PE like tool and cable clamps, etc. after, and hand paint them to match the camo.

I would be very careful with SillyPutty, too! The lifting of tiny bits was the reason I got right back out of it when I tried it. Turns out that SP is rather "stickyer" (if that's the word) than is "Tacky" - it adhers quicker and stronger in my experience -, and SP has that interesting SP property of behaving like a sort of "super-cooled liquid"; left in place too long and it gently and slowly flows into places and forms itself around stuff... which leads to it grabbing ever tighter to small bits.

"Tacky" is both less tacky than is SP and does NOT flow around and become better-adhered with time. IF you apply tacky lightly, it will stay pretty much lightly attached, yet it can be formed (when a thin sheet) to cover over small bits and fittings. For example, I had scratched a couple sets of tiny frames with small wire "pin handles" onto the rear ends of the radiator-boxes (the very-visible radiator-vane operating levers and frame-guides Tamiya failed to provide in their BT kits) on the BT-42 I posted above... these are only 2 - 3 mm across and very frail constructs of thin wire and tiny styrene bits. The tacky folded over these without issue and later came back off easily. I'm happy to say that the bits remained in place throughout the adventure! So, with care, one probably can fold tacky over little PE items and "tent" them for masking with relative confidence.

Bob