Looking for: DAK and British 8th...

[robertsjf]

....in citadel colors painting guide. The two guides I have use vallejo model line that doesn't seem to have an exact citadel equivalent. now, before I hear "Switch 2 Vallejo" two things: 1) I already own every single paint and ink Citadel makes, I'm not swapping out an entire set. 2) I have used dropper bottles in the past and, after a most unfortunate accident involving a clogged bottle of silver and the living room the Mrs prohibits dropper bottle paints in the house. Any of Battlefronts older iterations of Arfric(k)a have any such guides?

[Eusebius Rex]

....in citadel colors painting guide. The two guides I have use vallejo model line that doesn't seem to have an exact citadel equivalent. now, before I hear "Switch 2 Vallejo" two things: 1) I already own every single paint and ink Citadel makes, I'm not swapping out an entire set. 2) I have used dropper bottles in the past and, after a most unfortunate accident involving a clogged bottle of silver and the living room the Mrs prohibits dropper bottle paints in the house. Any of Battlefronts older iterations of Arfric(k)a have any such guides?

Actually there is such a guide for MW, but not LW, though the MW can be adapted somewhat.

Here is the link:
[URL="http://www.flamesofwar.com/Portals/0/Documents/Mid%20War%20Colour%20Guide.pdf"]http://www.flamesofwar.com/Portals/0/Documents/Mid%20War%20Colour%20Guide.pdf[/URL]

So I started painting FoW with Citadel(GW) and then moved to some limited Vallejo and have now decided that Tamiya is probably the best route. Tamiya has better suited colors than Citadel (whose line is very limited) and comes in jars that actually have more paint for the price, too. They also have both a can spray and paint pot for each color so I can prime, spray base, wash, highlight/ drybrush with base color again, then move to details after. This is my own method, not saying it is the best, but is very fast...

If you are 100% on GW paints, here is some advice:

Germans

Codex Grey is awful for German FeldGrau (uniforms and early/midwar tanks). i recommend black primer on infantry, then use Adeptus battlegrey base for uniforms and tank base coat. Wash with black wash, do your other colors (easy to figure out the the browns other tones for uniform equipment - dwarf flesh is good skin color) and then wash with the brown wash. Highlight after. Another method is to go ahead and use the Battlefront FoW German Gray primer as your primer and base, then you can skip the base and black wash, but will need to lighten up the uniform color some. The German FoW primer for LW tanks is best to use as an early MW FeldGelb - the pdf above really donesn't address that.

DAK (Afrika) uniform green is hard to do with Citadel. Camo Green doesn't do it, even washed. I mixed catachen and camo green and I think I darkened it with black to achieve my first batch. Again, Tamiya has a suitable pot color - and spray. DAK yellow on the tanks is easy - yellow base (illyran darksun?), then desert yelow, then wash and drybrush - too easy.

Brits

The MW brits are pretty easy with GW paints. I did my MW Italian Campaign Brits using the exact method from the link above and washed with brown and drybrushed bleached bone and they are very much acceptable for table top play. The GW desert brit colors are worse, as commando khaki doesn't look that good washed and everything is the same color.

Basing

I believe that basing in 15mm is so much more important than larger scales. I wish I'd preplanned and fgured out what I would be doing with the basing prior to painting the minis for my DAK/ MW Brits. If your basing colors are too close to the mini uniform color (like using commando khaki for base drycoat and uniform for desert rats) it just doesn't look good at arms length as the details are just not noticable. I also started giving the base its undercoat prior to painting the minis so that I can build on the contrast. but that is just my method...

If doing it over again, I'd go Tamiya/ FoW Primers all the way, using GW for flesh tones and maybe equipment details as needed. Bolt gun is way to metallic, btw - squirt vallejos gunmetal in a paint pot if you have to, but it is much darker - and good for 40k gunmetal, too.

[robertsjf]

Thanks Rex! That colo(u)r guide is just what I needed! Here I was, going through sites like [url]http://colors.silicon-dragons.com/[/url] and trying to match up each individual color.

What's the ratio you used on the DAK uniforms?

[Eusebius Rex]

Thanks Rex! That colo(u)r guide is just what I needed! Here I was, going through sites like [url]http://colors.silicon-dragons.com/[/url] and trying to match up each individual color.

What's the ratio you used on the DAK uniforms?

Probably close to 1:1 - I totally did it by sight alone - trying to match it be just a bit lighter than the DAK uniforms in the guide included with Afrika (found in North Africa book, too). It did ok. The wash helps so much. dry brush bleached bone to make it look dusty.

I also used Commando Khaki on some of the DAK figures, especially for trousers and officer uniforms. This is because the German hated thier DAK issue uniforms as they were too hot and the trousers especially were too tight. So they traded stuff to italians for spares. If you loot at uniforms in black/white photos the darker ones would be the DAK tropical green while the lighter colors are more of the italian type uniforms.

A good link for color comparisons:
[URL="http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=110&art_id=1722"]http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=110&art_id=1722[/URL]

[URL="http://www.afrikakorps.org"]http://www.afrikakorps.org[/URL] - was a great website on the DAK and 8th army, but i can't get it to work...

[robertsjf]

A good link for color comparisons:
[URL="http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=110&art_id=1722"]http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=110&art_id=1722[/URL]
...

That's one of the articles I was using to try and get alternatives color by color.

[Brother Glacius]

The original Desert Fox book had the GW colors listed I believe.