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Trust me, I would absolutely LOVE doing an M4A3E8 and make it into Fury, but you need an airbrush to do the OD green and Black stripes along the hull correctly.
Actually, no. Get some Silly Putty and some masking tape. Use the Silly Putty for the borders of the black areas and cover the rest in tape. Tape over the OD from one putty stripe to the other.
Spray away in short light bursts.
G
CONCUR- THAT'S the way I would go about painting the OLIVE DRAB and BLACK camo-scheme with diffused edges if I DIDN'T have an airbrush. However, US Shermans in this camo-scheme were also seen with "hard" edges in this camo-scheme. Therefore, you'd be safe if you "brush-painted" the BLACK over the OD. Just make sure that your BLACK isn't too thick, and that you wait at least 24 hours in order for the OD to cure properly before you apply your BLACK. Personally, I would much rather SPRAY the BLACK on, rather than brush-paint it on.
Some have said that BROWN was also painted over OD, but I personally have never seen any color evidence of this, at least not in photos purported to have been taken in North-western Europe, so I can't recommend this particular color sceme. There is ALWAYS a possibility that this DID occur, however.
In the Pacific Theatre, multi-colored camo, similar to the later tri-color WWII German camo-schemes, were seen on certain vehicles, such as the various LVT-series Amphibians. As a matter of fact, there were USMC M5A1 Stuarts painted in overall DARK OD or DARK GREEN DRAB, over-painted with a broad RED-BROWN wavy-pattern, and a few much thinner SAND-colored stripes in a random pattern, seen at Roi Namur, in the Pacific Theatre, in 1944. I have plans of building one of these, right along...
Some trivia: Certain earlier USMC M4A2s and US NAVY LVTs in the Pacific Theatre were also painted in a BLUE-ish-GRAY, very similar to FS35189 Dark Blue-Gray. Later, M4A2s were painted in the "standard" OD. Early M4A2s were manufactured with the 56-degree Hull, and later models featured the improved 47-degree "Big Hatch" Hulls, if you should ever decide to build a Pacific-war Sherman...
I know for a fact that quite a few US Vehicles in the earlier African and Mediterranean Campaigns were over-sprayed in a wavy pattern of a SAND-YELLOW color over OLIVE DRAB, but this particular scheme would not be appropriate for your time-frame, or in North-western Europe, 1944-45...
Just a side note- There are several photos of US Maintenance Crews spray-painting the BLACK on an M5A1 Stuart, RIGHT OVER the dirt, stowage, sandbags, etc, WITHOUT having cleaned the vehicle up, or removing said stowage, sandbags, etc. Evidently, the camo was applied in a rush, in order to get this M5A1 back to it's Unit & Crew, ASAP- There is NO hard and fast rule that says that this practice never happened on Shermans, but neither did this happen all the time, so you can go both ways, and still be accurate.
NOTE: The OD & BLACK camo was seen on British/Commonwealth/Canadian Vehicles, as well as the British BRONZE GREEN & BLACK cloud-pattern, or "Mickey Mouse" camo-scheme, as it has been referred to sometimes.
Either way you go, (overall OD, OD & BLACK, for US Shermans, and the same for Canadian vehicles manufactured in the US, OR, BRONZE GREEN & BLACK, for British/Commonwealth & some Canadian Shermans and other vehicles), you'd still be well within the realm of possibilities, as far as US/Allied camo-schemes go, during the last eleven months of WWII in Europe...
BTW- Feel free to ask any one of us any questions that you may have, in relation to this project, or any subsequent models that you may want to build in future...