Painting 3 Color Disruptive pattern on a Panther

In this painting session we try to replicate the 3 Color Disruptive camouflage pattern used by Germany at the end of WW2.

What you need

As usual we use Vallejo colors:

• 70.826 German Camouflage Medium Brown
• 70.979 German Camouflage Dark Green
• 70.882 Middlestone
• 70.863 Gunmetal Grey
• 73.200 Sepia Shade (Wash)

And also as usual 2 brushes: 1 small for details and 1 medium-big for drybrush and for big paint application. Lastly, we need modelling clay.

The painting process

We start by doing a Middlestone basecoat. Make sure that the paint is thick enough on the model because some parts of it will remain exposed at the end.

Normally you would not use modelling clay but a special mix that does not stick to the model. As i didn’t have that at my disposal i just went to the corner shop and bought a small pack of modelling clay.

I made small lines out of the clay and then i applied them to the tank trying to cover 30-40% of the surface.

After which i painted the exposed zones with plenty of Medium Brown. If you’ve applied the clay correctly the paint will not infiltrate behind it but it will stay at the limit.

Now we wait for the paint to dry and then we add some more clay lines (the green one) with which we mask part of the brown. What we’re actually trying to do is to let only the future Dark Green patches on the surface.

We now wait again for the paint to dry. I forgot to take a picture unfortunatelly so we’re right next to the unveiling now.

I’m happy with the result obtained for the first time when i experiment with this technique but it’s clear that the modelling clay has its faults or/and i made a mistake in applying it. You can notice that the paint has infitrated in some places under the clay and in certain spots it actually went hard and left residual.

Next is the Sepia Shade wash. This will darken the model and it will make it look more worn.

Now we paint the tracks with Gunmetal Grey. Also we will paint the turret machine-gun, the bow machine-gun and the tools attached to the tank.

The last step is to paint the machine-gun handle Medium Brown to simulate wood. Also we finish the tracks with a heavy Brown drybrush so we can make it look used and muddy.

And we are done! The model looks very good from 2 feet distance. Ofcourse all the defects are evident in the close up pictures but i think this painting sessions was an important lesson for the future.