Tuesday 22 November 2011

The Quest For Field Grey

Current painting project is a squad of 10 Warlord 28mm Germans for Operation: Squad. I started out undercoating them in Army Painter 'Uniform Grey', which is great as an undercoat, but it's clear once you've got it on the figure that it isn't by any stretch of the imagination 'feldgrau'. By no means blue/green enough.

So, off to the web for various folks' ideas of what makes a good feldgrau.
  • Vallejo Model Colour 102 - "Field Grey"
  • Vallejo Model Colour 165 - "Grey Green"
  • Vallejo Model Colour 112 - "Yellow Green" good for faded/late war
  • Vallejo Model Colour 113 - "Khaki Grey"
  • Humbrol 27 - "Sea Grey"
  • Humbrol 75 - "Bronze Green"
  • Humbrol 79 - "Blue Grey"
  • Humbrol 106 - "Ocean Grey"
  • Humbrol 111 - "Field Grey" (discontinued)
  • Tamiya XF-22 - "RLM Grey"
  • Tamiya XF-65 - "Field Grey"
  • Citadel... well, nothing really.
Of course, it doesn't help that by the end of the war, feldgrau meant 'whatever you can lay your hands on to dye the cloth that's greyish'. And some weren't very grey :D

"Field Grey". Honest.
In the end, I was constrained by what I can buy locally on a Monday. Which means Vallejo is right out (no-one within 70 miles, as far as I'm aware). GW don't do anything that really looks right, our only Humbrol Acrylics stockist doesn't open on Mondays... so it was Tamiya XF-65 from Hobbycraft, and I'll probably do some mixing so not all 10 figures are the same colour. Photos to follow when I get cracking.

[Addendum: of course, not long after I posted this I remembered that we have a local Flames of War stockist (The Rift - Hi Trev!), and the FoW paints are actually Vallejo. Ah well.]

5 comments:

  1. I used Vallejo Grey Green when I painted up the Angry Lurkers Germans.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I found that the Tamyia field grey is a bit greener than I expected. I also wound up using RLM grey as well, and some Humbrol 75, some Humbrol 106, and a mix of GW Scorched Brown and Humbrol 75, which produced quite a convincing late war 'whatever dye we had in stock' shade.

    Pictures when I'm done (which has to be before Friday!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not all on the same figure :D I think I have 10 figures with 5 or 6 different shades of feldgrau.

    Figures got dipped last night, basing tonight, varnish and pictures tomorrow evening, with luck.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good luck with the Tamiya paint. I've tried two pots of their acrylics and swore I would never do it again; horrible slimy stuff that's really difficult to apply smoothly and evenly.

    ReplyDelete

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