colors for german uniforms

Swing over to

A bit more friendly is armorama.com Same idea, justa bit more folksy.

have fun.

Mike please remove "diespam" to reply

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps you've misunderstood the situation.

Here's another site with good info, readily available, no questions to ask.

You could always "cheat"; Archer Dry Transfers sells a range of "eyeball" decals in sizes from 1/16th to 1/35th. They're waterside, applied like any other decal. They are tiny, of course, so don't surprised if you botch a few trying to get them on one figure. Since you're doing a lot of figures, this isn't exactly the cheapest method either, although you can do numerous figures from one sheet.

Hope these Help,

See if you can locate a copy of (the currently out-of-print) Shep Paine's book on figures, published by Kalmbach. This book answers all of your questions, and hundreds more. It is probably the best single, overall book on figure painting. His book on dioramas (also published by Kalmbach) also has a lot of good stuff dealing with figures.

Bill Horan's book, published by Windrow and Greene (in their "Military Modelling Masterclass" series) is also great. He deals mainly in American Civil War, and British Victorian era subjects; but by studying the extensive photos, you can learn scores of neat little "tricks" to spice up your figure painting skills. These "tricks" are applicable to whatever era and/or subject-matter one is painting. If you want to learn the art of shading and highlighting, studying photos of Horan's work is the way to go.

Hi Jeff, Shading the figures with a darker mix of field gray is a good start, but don't forget to also add highlights - you can add a little white to the base color drybrush it over the raised edges if the uniforms, this makes it all stand out nicely. I don't use a wash to simulate dirt, but I use a thinned down black to outline the pockets, collars & front of jacket, also bottom of jacket between pants & jacket. I also use a dirty gray drybrush on the gas mask canister & all other equipment to show dirt. Hope this helps. Dave C

Bill Horan's book is the way to go if you like working in enamels, as most other books insist on oils. Horan does wonders with enamel glazes and such. As a side-note, beware of Model Master's Field Gray. Unless it dries radically different than it looks in the bottle, it is too blue. They may have matched the color to a privately tailored officer's uniform rather than an issue uniform. Real Feldgrau is a warm gray-green with a hint of yellow-brown (which becomes more prominent as the fabric fades in use). Prewar uniforms were two-toned, with field gray jackets and stone gray pants, but field gray pants were issued shortly before the war began, so this wasn't common after 1939. Late war uniforms were made from a shoddy, rayon-wool blend which was darker and less green in color, and sometimes stocks of Italian or Czech fabrics were used as an expedient, so there is room for variation. Gerald Owens

One good technique for painting "feldgrau" uniforms is:

(considering garments that were wool, a natural material)...

Use a dark "warm" gray for the base coat. Mix in some dark brown for the shading colors. Use a lighter, greener shade, for the highlighting.

As an added treat for this treat, here is a link to one of the finest "feldgrau" Germans I have ever personally seen. This is Andre Koribanics' scratch-built 1/32nd scale "Eye Deep In Hell":