Tutorial - Basic painting camouflage

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Hello.

This is another really old article of mine which i now will translate. It is from the year 2006 or 2007, not really sure anymore. I want to say sorry for mould lines you may see and real bad photos.

Again, always check some references before painting something - here is a great inspiration and a big archive of camouflage patterns on tanks and on infantery clothes.

Music for those who like music!


1. Simple Desert Camouflage

Used colours:
Vermin Brown (VB)
Desert Yellow (dy)
Khommando Khaki (kk)
Bestial Brown (bb)
chaos black (cb)
schorched brown (sb)
skull white (sw)

Priming has been black with some grey drybrushing. I used to do it this way 3~4 years ago. Today i would recommand this priming technique.

First basecolour has been a mix from vb/cb (70/30):

Second step has been a gently highlighting by mixing in desert yellow (dy) into the mix:

Pure dy was now used on the upper areas of the model:

I took Kommando Khaki to strengthen the highlights:

Then i took bestial brown and started to draw the camouflage.I did small dots of chaos black, followed with white ones. For making nice dots i would recommand this article to you!

 After finishing the complete model up it looked like this:

2. Simple Urban Warfare Camouflage

Colours i have used:
chaos black (cb)
bestial brown (bb)
codex Grey (cg)
fortress grey (fg)
skull white (sw)
schorched brown (sb)

Priming has been black with some grey drybrushing. I used to do it this way 3~4 years ago. Today i would recommand this priming technique.

First i have used a mix of  50/30/20 - cb/sb/cg for the basecoat. I planned to have some greyish, warm black here. This is a little hint to you. Mixing in different colours in your blacks makes them more alive and easier to handle. Simply but some other intresting colours into your mix.

 Next i mixed in some more Codex Grey to do the first gentle highlights:

Then used Fortress Grey to do some strong highlights on the clothing:

I used the basic colour of 50/30/20 - cb/sb/cg to draw some dark camouflage spots. I used Skull White and Fortress grey 50/50 to paint the bright spots.

The final step has been a thin glaze of schorched brown over the complete clothes to bring it all together and make it look more gritty:

After finishing the complete model up it looked like this:

3. Painting Jungle Camouflage

This following describtion is from the USMC - Iwo Jima Step by Step you find here.

I did start my work on the helmets camouflage by taking these 2 references as a master: Click! and Click!
But in the back of my head was still this reference - Click!

I did start the camouflage pattern by sketching the brown areas. I did use Schorched Brown for this, as far as i can remember i did also use the 2nd skin shadowtone which still was left on my wetpalette (following photo). Also i did start the greenish camouflage by using a dark green mix from yellow olive and camo green. As i saw it was getting to dark i mixed in more camo green.

I now did paint the sketch up with the colours i have used before. If you do so and unclean areas appear do another layer on top of it to have it oquape. In the upper area of the green and brown i used the same tone just a bit brighter.

I did choose this photo as a reference and there the cloth and camouflage on the helmet is really worn out and dirty. The dirt comes later on but for giving this are a more worn look i did use a tiny amount of yellow sandish pigments a bit of Bleached Bone, Kommando Khaki, Desert Yellow and Graveyard Earth in the mix as a glaze and tipped it on the upper areas in several goes for making it dusty and washed into eachother.

Final words

I hope you like this article, even it is old already. I guess the last example of the jungle pattern shows that there is plenty of room of investing time into your camouflage work. Everything depends on your patience and the amount of miniatures you have to want to paint up. Remember - check some references before.

Keep on happy painting!
Regards
Roman