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Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2023 10:12 pm
by Extra Crispy
i need some Team Yankee infantry for my US forces and they should be in camo. dreading the idea and thinking of just going pain green.

Do you paint camo on yours?

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:14 pm
by pmskaar
Hi Extra Crispy

I do paint camo on my 6mm infantry. I did some late WWII Germans in camo and have some Cold War era Americans that are in the queue. I am not sure when I will be doing those exactly but plan to put the camo pattern on them. Of course you can decide just to paint them a single color and most people will probably not notice or care if they do. It is a bit of a pain. I also painted some H&R Cold War British infantry as well.

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Late War Germans

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Cold War West Germans - Helmets are camouflaged but not the uniforms.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2023 3:37 am
by madman
I have and the technique I have used is first I prime and base coat my figures in the lightest colour. Then for all the additional colours I prepare a brush very similar to dry brushing. That is I dip the brush into paint then wipe a lot of it off by lightly brushing it on some paper toweling. Then instead of brushing the paint on I dab it on by lightly "poking" the brush on the figures. It takes some experimentation to get how much paint to leave on the brush to give the desired results. This is also affected by how many colours you will be adding.

Now the down side is I am finding a lot of the time the "dabs" cover the same area so after a while you have lots of the base colour but little of the intermediate one(s) and a good amount of the final colour. So my next effort will be to paint the base colour, then brush on the intermediate colour(s) trying to keep the patches as small as possible with the final colour being applied as above using dabs.

At this scale I make NO effort to match scale ratios or any kind of design. Based on my experience I am just lucky to get each colour having a visual presence on the final figure. After the camo is on then I still paint belts, pouches, boots, guns, faces and hands, etc.. A typical figure for me has 4 to 7 colours in addition to the uniform. But as said in pmskaar's post all this is only visible under extreme magnification so on the table really only myself is there to have a feel of pride in the work involved.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2023 11:44 pm
by Hoth_902
This topic is very timely for me. I am about to paint some German WWII paratroopers here soon. Any tips will be very useful.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:40 am
by Gazza
I have done in the past. If I remember correctly, I used the lightest colour as the base coat. I then applied small(!) irregular patches of a couple of other colours. I then drybrushed the original light colour before picking out the boots, weapons, flesh etc.
Hoth_902 wrote:
Tue Jan 10, 2023 11:44 pm
This topic is very timely for me. I am about to paint some German WWII paratroopers here soon. Any tips will be very useful.
I was lucky with my WW2 german paras in that I used an early war paint scheme (from a Flames of War book IIRC) that just called for a light grey smock. I think that the main thing at this scale is not to worry too much about accurately representing actual camo patterns (pea dot, oal leaf, dpm, digi etc.) and 'just' apply random blotches.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2023 3:10 am
by madman
Gazza wrote:
Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:40 am
I think that the main thing at this scale is not to worry too much about accurately representing actual camo patterns (pea dot, oal leaf, dpm, digi etc.) and 'just' apply random blotches.
Yes. Don't try to be "accurate". Unless you are superhuman, or only painting a couple figures, just do the above. Even the smallest dots of colour are going to be as large as or larger than the medium size areas of colour of any camouflage pattern. Just aim for reasonably close to original colours and go for a good contrast between the colours.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 7:18 am
by Mickel
Yep, just a base colour and random splotches that hopefully don't look too much like polka dots.

It probably doesn't look flash up close, but it gives the impression at tabletop distances.


Mike

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 9:07 pm
by Cav Dog
I use the same technique as Madman.

Here are some TWW I did a while back:

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Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2023 2:39 am
by Hoth_902
This article is so timely for what is on my bench. Thank you all for this topic and the input. It's giving me inspiration to get started.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 6:49 am
by BurtWolf
Wow - great examples being shown. I admire y’all’s patience, I dread doing infantry because my blobby paint job is predictably amateurish. I can’t get past that to do camo…. Appreciate what others are able to do (and do well)!

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 10:09 pm
by redleg
I'm very impressed with the infantry on this thread! I paint camo on my infantry too, but it doesn't look nearly as good. I subscribe to he theory that it's too small to really notice detail, so I paint them the bae color and then I use a toothpick to bad the other colors on in an irregular pattern. For the faces, I put a small dab of flesh and a small dab of brown on a pallet and I mix them so that there are varying shades of skin tones, and then I use the tooth pick. Not that you can tell small variations in skin tones at this scale, but it makes me feel better about my sloppy painting!

I will paint weapons, and large items like radios or rucksacks, but I have never even attempted to paint boots or web gear.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2023 4:27 pm
by Gazza
Somewhat related to painting camo, I've also tried adding small bits of sponge to helmets to represent foliage. A few photos - non of which are actually in focus I'm afraid.
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Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:08 pm
by pmskaar
Nice work, Gazza! Even though the picture is a bit out of focus, the effect looks good to me.

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 4:45 am
by BurtWolf
Looks cool Gazza, never thought of that. It’d help with hiding my pathetic infantry painting!!

Re: Do you paint camo on infantry?

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:37 pm
by Hoth_902
This is a little off topic, but what does everyone use to cover up the base that is attached to each individual infantry piece so that it does not show after basing?