New to the hobby, and received my first reference books for Christmas. In looking through them I notice that the camoflage was often (perhaps usually) painted with tools, tow cables, spare track links etc in place. This leaves trying to match wood colours, and getting that metallic sheen on the shovel a thing of the past...

With my less than steady hands this was a cool find.

Not in my old Regiment. That would have been an offence that merited punishment by crucifixion!

Well some did and some didn't ...The Allies seemed to paint their tools more than the Germans did ,but I'm sure you can find enough evidence one way or the other...The only thing I've noticed is this effect is hard to pull off on models to make everything look real and not toy like ...Make sure the paint is worn and chipped which is just as long as painting the wood in the first place.

Rick

Ive seen both tools painted cammo or left in there natural wood/metal colours

I presume it all depends on when the paint was applied, on a factory paint job the tools may be added after, in the field the crew may not remove the tools for painting.

As an allied modeller i prefer to paint the tools the natural colours to add a little contrast to the overall OD scheme. But thats just personal preference

Ian

To be honest the best way to recreate this i think, would be to paint the tools their correct colours then, once the base colour has been applied to the vehicle mount the tools then paint the camoflage. So not much of a break ...

BTW, the references I am referring to are specifically German.

I saw this great pic of a German ambulance with camo. The shovel was removed from its brackets leaving a very visible base coat 'shadow' in its place. Apparently the camo was applied with the shovel in place.