Jagdpanther Camo

[Hoth_902]

Attached below is the begging of a green and red brown camo pattern for my Jagdpanther. First things first, I will start by pointing out two things about the Jagdpanther photos. 1. The paint is glossy and needs to be dulled out. 2. I need to clean up some of the over and under painted spots. O and 3. the paint is really thick. ... Wait, that is three things.. LOL.

The paint is Mr. Color. Typically I would put a model masters green color, thinned, over the Mr. Color Dark Yellow. I have pretty good success with that and it goes on thin enough to not loose detail. Since model master is gone (thank you Rustoleum...asp holes), I put Mr. Color Dark Yellow as a base with Mr. Color Dark Green for the camo. I am not very happy with the results. To be honest, my knee jerk reaction is to strip it and try again. I wanted to know what the community thinks.



The picture that has a Stug and Jagdpanther, together, is for comparison of something else I Kind of like. The base coat for the Stug is Mr. Color Dark Yellow and then I uses Humbrol's medium green and red brown. I am thinking the Stug green looks better and the Jagdpanther is too dark. Not to mention the Jagdpanther dark green looks way too thick up close.... did I already point that out earlier.

Honest opinions requested, even if you think it sucks.. I am on the verge of stripping the Jagdpanther.

[Tanker Mike]

I see your point but I would apply a flat coat to see how that looks. I suspect that might do the trick.

[BurtWolf]

good job painting those, but if you want to be a stickler on the colors then I think you may be right. The Stug looks like a better scheme, I think the green on the jagdpanther doesn’t look quite right to be honest. Maybe a wash and some dry brushing would take it down a couple notches? Otherwise I would consider a strip/redo.

[redleg]

I'm the last person to comment on historical camo colors, but I do like the paint job. A little glossy on the green like you mentioned. You just need to get it really dirty and it will be perfect! Nice work on the tracks!

[Beagle]

Hoth, I also agree that the green is a little to dark, it feels like it should have a little more of a grey hue to it. Once you apply a wash over it, it would be super dark. Are you using Mr. Color model color or Aqueous? If it’s model color, good on you, I can’t brush paint with it to save my life, although it’s all I airbrush with.

[Hoth_902]

Thanks for all the feedback and please, keep it coming.

Tanker Mike: I may apply a dull coat just to see what it does, before I strip it.

Burtwolf: Yea, I kind of knew when the fist drop of paint hit the model that it was not going to be good. Those pictures were taken in really bright light and it shows the green better. In duller normal Light, it looked almost black. I think its stripping time.

Redleg: Thanks for the encouragement. All dirtied up would be awesome.

Beagle: I agree with your assessment. I am using Mr. Color Model color. Never heard of Aqueous. Interesting that you would point out your difficulties with Mr. Color and hand brushing. If you thin it too much, it smears. if you use it out of the bottle, its way too thick. Its the first time I tried to hand paint it. I have only used Mr. Color (Dark Yellow) as an airbrushed base coat. It goes on really nice and looks great. I use it for both my WWII germans and for some of my Russian kit. see below.



I love how it comes out. The camo colors are all enamels from Model Masters. Sadly with the Model masters line gone, I am forced to find other sources. With that said, the I used Humbrol enamel on the stug. I like the color and how it came out. The enamel and Acrylics are great for thinning so that once you apply it, its thin enough to not loose the detail. I think moving forward, it will always be used as a base coat through the airbrush. No more hand painting with it. If every one agrees that the Medium Green and Red Brown from Humbrol looks like a better choice..... its off to the hobby store.

[Beagle]

Aqueous is their water based acrylic, I’ve never used it as I’m very faithful to Vallejo. But yes, model color does brush paint EXACTLY as you say. But airbrushing is amazing, it’s all I use on my plastic models, if it’s mixed with their self leveling thinner, it’s an amazing smooth finish and it’s really durable. It’s what I made my switch to when MM went away.

[nashorn88]

If it was me I would ink with brown. That’s will darken the whole tank then highlight.

[redleg]

Holy smokes - your modern Russian gear looks awesome! And I also have to say that I am very impressed with that pristine work surface! My cutting mat is super torn up and covered in paint drippings!

[Hoth_902]

Nashorn: So you think using a wash that result in an overall darkening will make it look better?

Redleg: That picture was from several years ago. Its way more smeged up now. LOL. It does not even look like the same Matt. Thanks for the compliment on my russian stuff. I have at least 2 to 4 companies of BTR-80s and 80/As to put green camo on. All base coated up. Plus one company of BTR 80s. I am going to do a few more vehicles with the Dark Yellow, green and black contour lines before I switch over to some in a beige or all green. Variety is the spice of life.

Beagle: I agree, base coating is amazing but painting not so much. I will have to give the Acrylic a try. I Like to do detail work in acrylic over an enamel because its easily cleaned up with some thinner and will not damage the enamel paint underneath. Then just touch up with the enamel color and you are good.

[chrisswim]

Very nice Hoth. Looks great.

Redleg, my area is Pristine..... MESS.

Very nice looking camo Hoth. You need to go to battle to lose some turrets, run out of gas.

[Beagle]

I’ve only airbrushed one piece of GHQ, it’s a glider. The reason being, it had such a large surface area, and not much in the way of scribed detail, I didn’t want to deal with the time involved of not getting brush strokes, so I shot it and done. I will have an upcoming ship that will get airbrushed. Mostly though, I usually don’t paint more than two pieces of micro armor at a time, or one ship, and it’s just not worth the time to use the airbrush……or the paint and thinner, gloves and pipe cleaners.

[pmskaar]

Hi Hoth

I think your camouflage green is a bit on the dark side. If you are adventurous, you might consider finishing one of them just to see how it turns out when completed. Certainly a flat coat on the model will help and a wash will help blend things together a bit and give the vehicle a better weathered look.

I do recommend lightening the two camouflage colors a bit. I think it will keep things from looking too stark. As I have said before in regards to painting - there is no absolute right way or wrong way to do things but some things just end up looking better. This is true for color choices as we are looking for that perfect "Russian" green, U.S. Olive Drab, or in this case Dunkelgelb with the camo applied over it.

For myself, I use Humbrol enamels. For the last 30 years or so, I use Humbrol #83 Dark Yellow as my base coat for my later WWII Germans. I use #86 German Light Olive as my green color and #160 German Camouflage Red Brown as my other two colors. I do lighten all of these a bit with #34 Matt White to make them look more in scale with the models. Other paint manufacturers usually have similar colors so please feel free to use whatever suits your taste.

I also use a very dark brown wash over my German camo as well. This helps blend the colors. Being an old school guy, I used the basic GHQ formula of about 1 part paint to either 4 or 7 parts artists turpentine to allow it to flow into the cracks and crevices. I then take clear turpentine and a brush and go over it again a time or two or three to get the wash off of the raised details and into the recessed areas. Once I am completely happy with the look, I then will hit some of the raised areas with a slightly lighter color to make things pop even more. The turpentine will allow you to work with the wash for a long time, hours or even days before it sets.

Once I am done with the wash, I set the wash by baking in my handy toaster oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees.

Here are a few pictures of my late WWII German vehicles.







You can see more on my own thread - "Pete's Place" here on the GHQ Forum. I will be posting some WIP pictures of my WWII German half tracks and some other things soon.

I hope this helps.

[Hoth_902]

Chrisswim: Thanks for the compliment

Beagle: I normally prime up 20 to 30 vehicles and then base coat them. Then slowly do the detail work later.

pmskaar: Thanks for the color information. I will be picking the humbrol colors up soon. Also thanks for including the paint numbers as well. Follow on question, do you build the camo up in thinned layers? I thought I read somewhere that its what you do to achieve the look you have. Also great work and very good looking models.

[pmskaar]

Hi Hoth

Yes, I do several thin layers of paint to achieve a more subtle, sprayed on look. Back in the day, I used to use an airbrush but found I had more control by brushing on.