I'm going to try oil paints to drybrush the Sherman I'm working on and I know I'm supposed to use a lighter shade of the base color to drybrush with.

My question is, does anyone know the colors to combine to make OD?
Yellow and Blue make green (I think) but I don't know what to add to make olive drab.

Hi Game,

The OD shade should be on the light side as you will be highlighting. A good basic mix is yellow ochre/prussian blue/burnt umber. You can add a little titanium white for a faded effect. Go light on the brushing. I basically stick to a fine highlighting with naples yellow.
For the oils you want 3/4's yellow and a point each of the other two. Depending on the brand of oil paint you use, Burnt sienna and /or raw sienna can be substituted for the burnt umber, and sap green or cinnibar green for the prussian blue. Let us know how you fare.

Cheers

Jack

I think you will be happy with oils. I have only used them once but I can tell you I will use them on every model I build from now on. I also used them on a sherman. To get a good OD color I mixed green earth hue and golden ochre. To me this seemed to be a near perfect OD, but I am not the best refference for that. It is real hard to say how to mix them without knowing the colors and shades you have, but it will basically be a green, yellow, brown, and maybe even gray to tone it down mixture of some type from my limited experience. If your going to be doing more OD vehicles I would get the 2 colors I metioned because I didn't have to add anything else to get an OD that made me happy.

I would like to give you some more advice on oils if I can. I am not an expert but I would tell you not to limit yourself to drybrushing the lighter areas with it (the typical drybush spots). I used them and was even more happy with the results I got with shadding with them (I guess thats what you would call it).

First if your going to use oils you should check out a couple other threads in this section on them. The best one is here https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/76&page=1
There is also another one I started called washing with oils I that may help. On the link above you will find a link to an article on the missing link web site. I would read that, at least the oil part. I prepared my oils the way that author did. I didn't use the same brands but did use the same material (linseed oil and varnish to name a couple) to thin and prep the pant.

Before I got to the oils I have put on a base coat of acrylic OD and a light coat of future floor wax and then set my decals. The one thing I didn't do was seal the decals with something. Next time I will because the oil paints didn't do a good job of this. If you use any other method of preping the model I have no idea what will happen (like using enamel paint). If anyone comes along and says "don't listen to that moron Andrew, he doesn't know what he is talking about" they are probably right and I would listen to them. I am just sharing what I have done once and made me happy.

Anyway, here are the basics of what I did as far as oils go. I dry brushed the entire model with the OD oil paints to give it the "painted steel" look. After that I took the leftover paint and seperated it into 2 little plasic cups. One on them I made lighter and one i made darker, with white and a very dark brown. I took the darker one and dry brushed the areas that should be shaded or less worn. After that I took the lighter shade and hit the traditional dry brush areas and the open areas that would be faded by te sun. When this was done I took a brush with nothing on it and blended the areas. This is very easy because the oils take at least 24 hours to dry and blend betther than anything I have ever used. With the finish I had on the modle before I started to use oils I found it very easy to add more or take some off if I had made any mistakes.

That sums up what I did with the oils for the most part. Again, it was my first attempt so I am not an expert but I am sold for life. Be sure and check out that article and if you want to see my sherman you can check out the thread on this board called Andrews Sherman to see how it turned out. I also lightened the lighter color and put some scrapes on the model as directed in the missing link article then thinned them out a lot with an enamel wash, but I won't get into it here. Feel free to ask me any questions you have. I hope this helped. Have fun.

When using oils, I'd suggest using an acrylic as an underlying coat. ie.. Model Master or Pollyscale etc.. Once this undercoat (UC) is dry, use the oils over it. The UC acts as a barrier between the plastic and the oils. The oils could soften or worse yet, melt the plastic. Also by using the acrylics you establish a base coat. Then its is just a matter of using lighter and darker shades of the base color for shadows and highlight. Have I confused anyone yet.. hehheh.. Its easier to demonstrate than talk it... hopefully I made it clear.. HTH "Q"

I screwed the pooch on my first post....was thinking figures instead of vehicles.....lemme try this instead. For vehicles, artist oils are the way to go. You can actually mix your basic Model Master enamel with oils to achieve your desired color. I mix a small amout of titanium white with the MM Olive Drab and go from there. The last color I apply is the Titanium White all by its lonesome, but very lightly. The oils work much better than anything I have used in the past, just have to get used to them taking so long to dry. The Raw Umber makes for some excellent fuel stains and the Burnt Umber works well for rust. I usually apply them after I have mounted the model to a base to reduce the handling involved. Hope this clears things up...sorry for the misdirection on the first post.. "Q"

Hi there

You can make OD with yellow and black. A few dabs of black in a yellow go a long way. Try yellow ochre for a different shade. So for drybrushing, add yellow to the base color (as someone else suggested) for the highlights, and add black or raw umber to do shadows.

The other suggestions will work too, but I find adding white can make the model look too "frosty". That may reflect my error more than anything else.

Andy

:-) It is important to know which effect you are looking to achieve. Add white if you want the colours to look faded and washed out. Use yellow ochre or one of it's derivatives if you desire richer, fuller tones. Using complementary colours, a figure painters approach will enhance the richness of the oil colours, while our old b&w standbys will wash them out and fade thrm. Generally speaking, I've never known oils to attack plastic. Yhe real problem is that they can "botch up" fine detail. A little goes a long way. That is why I recommend them ONLY for washes and dry-brushing, where application is minimalistic. Also, reversing back yet another step, it is really important use a primer if you are going to use acrylics. Most acrylics are Vinyl based, kinda like white/carpenters glues, and make a film which will peel off if it doesn't have something to cling to.

BMT (build more tanks)

Jack