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Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy Hiding in the Open
Painting Rettemeier's Panzer III

By Andrew 'Lumpy' Salisbury

If you remember from last time we covered the details of painting faces with everyone’s favourite man-in-a-can Oberst Rettemeier.

This week we’re going to be merging man with machine into an awesome weapon of war otherwise known as a tank.

We’re going to focus on how you achieve a believable camouflage look at this scale.

It’s quite fashionable to use an airbrush to achieve this affect and a master of this tool can bring about flawless blends in tiny areas.

I’ve found most people don’t actually own an airbrush so I’m going to use the next best thing: a real brush.

"Cover Me! I’m going in!"

After we’ve got down a black undercoat using our chosen method (spray can, brush, small sister…) we have to get a solid foundation for the main colour of the tank. Go back with some black paint and make sure there’s not any shiny or non-black bits that you might’ve missed in your undercoat.

Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy
This time I’ve blue-tac’d the turret to the body to keep it still while I wave it around and I’ve blue-tac’d the entire tank to the lid of a spice jar so I’ve got something to hold that isn’t a lovingly painted surface.
Stage 1 Stage 1

Since we’re painting for the Afrika Korps I’m going with Sicily Yellow (FWP362).

Try and be as clean as you can, even at this early stage: It’s easier to leave a black line than it is to go back and add one.

Keep the deepest recesses paint free (e.g. the holes in the track wheels) and don’t forget to paint the hull beneath the tracks; it’ll give you a better overall finish at the end.

If you get some paint where you don’t want it don’t hurt yourself over it, as there’s a ways to go yet!

Make sure your paint isn’t too thick; otherwise by the time you’re at stage 3 it’ll start looking like an artist’s impression and not a scale miniature.

Stage 2

Next we start laying the base for where the camo is going to go. My colour for this stage is Comrade Khaki (FWP326).  We’re using this colour because it’s still pretty close to Sicily Yellow, when we go through the next few stages it’ll become apparent why we have this stage.

We thin the paint down so that it’s still controllable from the brush to miniature but thin enough that if you want to wipe it off straight after putting it on you probably can because it hasn’t dried fast enough.

Stage 2
Start at the bottom and keep your final camo scheme in mind as you go. I’ve tried to keep the trend of the camo lines mostly vertical without putting too many close together. The overall effect should basically break the image up if you saw it on the horizon and thus look less like a tank. Don’t forget to add the camo on the hull underneath the tracks! 
Stage 3 Stage 3

“I can’t see you, so you can’t see me!” – Lumpy, age 5

With our design laid out thanks to stage 2 we start to flesh it out with some bolder colours. In this stage I’ve gone for about a 50/50 mix of Comrade Khaki and Heer Green (FWP340).

As always we keep the paint pretty thin and this time it’s even easier: paint between the lines!

Essentially you go over the base work done in stage 2 leaving only a thin line of Comrade Khaki between the colour you’re applying now and your base colour of Sicily Yellow.

It’s relatively essential to keep your paint thin here because if it’s too thick the edges of the areas you paint will be strong and we don’t want that. We’re trying to provide the illusion that the edges of camo pattern are slightly fuzzy and thus blend with the base colour.

Stage 4

By now the final camo effect should be becoming quite obvious and we need to strengthen the colours to enhance the blending effect at the edges. For this stage we’ll be using Heer Green (FWP340).
   
We thin the paint as much as we need so that it won’t start building up on the surface of the miniature and we continue the same process we went through in stage 3 only this time we keep the area we cover thinner again.

Stage 4
Stage 4

At the end of this stage you should have a pure bronze green vein running through the middle of the bronze green/khaki grey blend, which in turn is skirted by a thin khaki grey colour again.

Stage 5

Now that we’ve put all that work into getting the camo looking great, we’re going to paint right over it again.

Ok, I’m misleading you a little bit there, but we are going to have to go back over the work we’ve already done with the base colour of the tank (Sicily Yellow).

First we thin the paint down so that it’s very thin, pretty much so that it’s the same consistency as water only coloured to look like Sicily Yellow paint. Once we have it about right we put some on the brush and then take about half that amount off the brush again (so you don’t drown your mini and ruin all your careful black-lining work!).

Stage 5
Stage 5

We pull this very thin paint over the camo patterns you’ve done in an attempt to tone them all back down to the colour you’ve started with. Some people call this ‘pulling the colours together’.

This is quite a tricky process so if you think you haven’t got the minerals for it you can probably leave it out but I recommend learning this skill as it’s very valuable.

As they say in New Caledonia, “C’est finis!”

“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!!” – The movie of the same name

With all the hard work done (I’m talking about the camo) you just finish dressing the vehicle however you think it needs to be done. 

Once complete it was a simple cut-and-paste operation to get Rettemeier from my pin vice to the top of the turret. A quick blast with sealant – because people have sticky fingers and can’t just look! – and that’s it! It’s finished!
   
I hope you’ve learnt something from these two articles, I know I certainly have! (Mainly that irregardless isn’t a real word, irrespective of what you say and regardless of what you think).

Slightly suss Photography by Lumpy on his Box Brownie.
Pseudo-professional Photography by Casey with a camera far too expensive for him to really be allowed to touch.

See how to paint Rettemeier himself... 

Completed tank
Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy
Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy Rettemeier and his Panzer III painted by Lumpy


Last Updated On Wednesday, July 1, 2015