Painting Late War Splinter Camo on Panthers

In this painting session we try to replicate the Splinter camouflage pattern used by Germany at the end of WW2 on the Panther tanks.

What you need

As usual we use Vallejo colors:

70.826 German Camouflage Medium Brown
70.979 German Camouflage Dark Green
70.882 Middlestone
73.200 Sepia Shade (Wash)
Any black color for the tracks

And 2 brushes: 1 small for details and 1 medium-big for drybrush and for big paint application.

The painting process

First things first, let me just say that i think the Splinter Pattern is one of the best looking camouflages that exist for German tanks. I have been a long time fan of this design but never got around to do it. Well, not anymore!

The whole process is surprisingly easy. I was so caught up in it and i was not sure that it will turn out good that i did not take any pictures until the end product. So here are the steps:

a) Basecoat the model with any dark (preferably black) paint.
b) Basecoat it again with Middlestone (this will be the tank’s main colour).
c) Using Dark Green add about 3 to 4 big spots on the tank. If you don’t know how big these are supposed to be just keep in mind that you will add 4 more spots with Brown later and you have to let space out for the Middlestone to show also. I usually guide myself to do at least 1 spot on the sides, 1 spot on the front and 1 on the back.
d) Using Medium Brown add another 3 to 4 big paint spots to the tank. Just go wild and make it as best as you can. If you’re not pleased with them you can always paint Middlestone over and do it again.
e) After the paint dried up now take the small brush and fill the Middlestone with stipples of Dark Green. Just use the point of the brush to dot the paint around.
f) Using the small brush now stipple Middlestone on both Dark Green and Medium Brown dots.
g) While the paint dries use Black to paint the tracks and the machine guns.
h) After the paint dried use Sepia Wash to age the vehicle a bit.
i) After all this is done use a Middlestone heavy drybrush on the whole tank to make it as the paint has eroded a bit from the weather.

And that’s it! Want to see the results? Here they are: