Obvious in the context looking at the web page perhaps, but…

This document is intended for people interested in painting miniatures for wargaming purposes.

In a short document such as this it is not possible to be exhaustive, a rough idea is all that’s practical. Really you need a ‘proper’ book at least out a library for a week and hence the book and paint recommendations are the most significant content.

As I don’t play games set in the Far East, this theatre of operations is not covered, and is unlikely to be by any future update.

White winter uniforms became available to all combatants, these are not specifically detailed below, they were white and shapeless…

Due to an acquired allergy, I stopped using enamels some time back and shifted to acrylics.

Colour Party Paints do some nice camouflage colours, these don’t ‘cover’ tremendously well, but this suits my style of painting well and they are relatively cheap if you buy at shows.

Vallejo/Andrea are excellent quality, good coverage, include specific camouflage colours and the squeezy bottles with squirty tops mean is a really good format. Perhaps a little expensive.

Miniature Paints Mostly unremarkable but fair coverage at a reasonable price and easily obtainable.

Inscribe / Anita cheap acrylics available from art stores, excellent value for money and a good range. Squirty tops, big bottles.

You definitely ought to visit your art store and check out the ranges and prices if you are going to need paint in quantity.

Liquitex Really high quality art store paint, some very bright colours available due to (poisonous) metal salts used. Don’t lick your brush.

Humbrol Acrylics do Dunkelgelb and a dull green excellent for field grey. Paints tend to settle out quickly, fiddly and small containers mean I’m only interested in very specific colours off them.

Winsor Newton Inks Excellent for shading, and mixing with acrylics. Already contain something which reduces surface tension which can be a problem with wash or stain techniques.

Art store Acrylic Inks Particularly good on small scale figures where you need a bright finish so you can see colours.

Cote D’Armes Sell the ‘old’ Games Workshop range of paints, I think the most useful is Flesh Wash.

Winsor Newton Water Mixable Oils If you really like the qualities of oils, but don’t like Turps, then these are well worth a go. For painting large figures (like 120mm) or Fantasy monsters, then these are excellent. Less useful for most ww2 gaming scales.

Games Workshop Matte spray varnish often dries satin actually, and thus useful for varnishing tanks.

Halford’s Clear Lacquer Spray Very tough yellowing resistant gloss varnish spray. Use this and then hand paint matte varnish avoiding the gloss parts of a figure. Read the instructions on the can.

Humbrol Matte Cote Very matte varnish, won’t yellow, but thins with white spirit. Can take a long time to dry and being very matte you need to ensure that you don’t put too thick a coat of gloss varnish on first or figures look weird.

Winsor Newton Matte Varnish Minimal chance of milking ( a major problem with matte acrylic varnish ) Very Matte.

A man stood in front of you wearing examples of uniforms would be ideal, failing that the serious student of uniforms is lucky in that there are a number of books showing clear colour pictures of real uniforms. Even Russians are now covered in this manner.

Contemporary colour footage exists, and this is very interesting in showing the effects of mud etc on uniforms which re-enactors or museums are unlikely to wish to visit on their prize possessions.

Re-enactors are usually very particular about getting details right, film regularly appears in ww2 documentaries on Cable/satellite channels. You can also see re-enactors at various conventions. Military Illustrated often have colour pictures of these and detailed articles on specific uniforms but is only really cost effective if you are interested in the other articles or buy just a particular issue.

Military modelling has several projects per issue where someone describes how they built and painted a figure. WW2 figures appear sometimes in these, almost every issue in adverts. On odd occasions in the past they’ve done specials using pictures of re-enactors.

Way down the list of useful sources for colours and details are the books which contain watercolour pictures, these being an artist’s impression of an unknown source. Reverse-engineering the technique used to paint the picture might give useful ideas for figure painting.

US uniforms are not terribly interesting, think green on green.

Green uniform, dark green helmet, various shades of green webbing. The green is likely familiar as army surplus over from the ‘50s. Some troops had a darker sort of green-brown colour trousers.

Rangers had a blouson style jacket based on golfing wear in a sort of fawn or light stone. If you’ve seen Saving Private Ryan, you’ve seen this.

Webbing was khaki, often approaching the colour of the rest of the uniform - no blanco.

Boots black or brown.

Sources

One very good source for US uniforms in Europe is ‘Saving Private Ryan’. The tactics were invented in Hollywood, but a lot of effort was put into getting the uniforms right and so it’s almost as reliable a source as you’ll see.

GI in Europe ??? Shows numerous contemporary colour photos

Paints

Colour party paints camo and both khakis.

Miniature paints dark green taken down with black or grey for helmets.

The drop uniform was an unusually light colour - stone with green patch pockets and knee patches. This was then swathed in webbing to hold the equipment to the body and avoid tangling.

The Nazi leadership loved pomp and theatre and entered the war with very high quality uniforms with fancy bits on them. As the war progressed the quality of uniforms was reduced, designs were simplified and changed to minimise the amount of cloth used. The quality of cloth was reduced, off-cuts, recycled thread from captured Russian uniforms and even left-over Italian cloth used.

The SS were a separate organisation to the rest of the army and notable as the first to use camouflage uniforms.

Possibly due to all the fancy bits, German uniforms have long been of great interest and hence there are numerous good sources available.

The 1943 uniform shows these changes, most noticeable by the change to badges and the simplification of patch pockets.

Front line troops in general often had rather an unkempt rough-n-ready appearance. From about 1944 onwards front line German units could expect to face an enemy who had a massive materiel advantage (particularly in artillery) whilst they themselves had shortages in all sorts of things. Uniforms were no exception a significant proportion of German troops would actually look rather more like tramps than the jack-booted heroes pictured on the front of Signal.

There are a lot of fiddly bits to describe but those interested will find a wealth of printed sources.

Field Grey initially varied from grey-blue to grey-green. Some colour sources show grey-brown - this is quite possibly due to mud. Grey is not really the first word which springs into my mind to describe the colour of most mid to late war unifoms, darkish green is probably more descriptive.

Early uniform jackets often had dark bottle-green collars, but many were overall field grey and this became the norm late in the war. The branch of service (Waffenfarbe) piping was white for infantry, black for pioneer (assault engineers), pink for tankers, green for pz grenadier.

Boots and the various (external) straps black leather in temperate areas, ochre in desert.

The metal of gas mask cases etc was painted, usually in a blue-grey version of the field grey. This wore off, and cooking utensils were often completely bare of paint.

The water bottle cover was usually a mid brown felt.

Bread bags were various colours, varying from a mid brown sort of hessian sack colour, sometimes field grey and often an olive

green.

Ammo boxes were initially a grey but often most of the paint would be scratched off through use and the actual colour difficult to make out. When dark yellow became the standard camouflage colour on vehicles this was used on ammo boxes and PzFausts, similarly olive green.

The standard Wehrmacht camouflage scheme was ‘splinter’ which was most commonly jagged patches of chocolate brown and dark green over a lighter olive green. This was first used on the Zeltbahn (poncho), later helmet covers and from about ‘44 for camouflage blouses/jackets.

The helmet cover was attached by ties, note that this differed from the SS one and would usually have a different shape due to the method of attachment/draw strings.

Entrenchment tool covers was black for most of the war, some ochre towards the end.

The leather braces were intended to hold equipment only, and where you see various rolls and stuff on a soldiers back, these are actually on a small framed pack which attaches to the braces.

The soldiers trousers were held up by another pair of webbing braces which went (over the shirt) under the jacket. These would only usually be visible on figures wearing just a shirt for some reason.

Metal helmets were painted a blue-ish sort of grey, in the early war they had the shield shaped decals on each side, this was discontinued mid war but could still be seen on some rear echelon troops through the war.

Wehrmacht would very rarely wear camouflage trousers, unless specialist troops such as snipers.

SS camouflage smocks were highly prized, and it is not unusual to see Wehrmacht officers wearing them.

Early to mid war, officers would often have higher quality uniforms purchased privately, the cut and colour being different from the average soldier.

The company tailor would often have to patch up, alter and create clothes from scratch. Especially from 1944 onwards this meant that non-standard clothing was not unusual in front line units. Old ponchos were one source of material and an example might be a camouflaged shirt made out of this.

Another cause of odd uniforms was the Russian winter of 1941 where troops were forced to improvise or freeze.

Sources

Histoire collection, German army Soldiers. Although overall pretty good, some of the items of equipment are sufficiently unusual that on it’s own this source can be a little misleading.

Any decent sized library is likely to have a number of useful books.

Painting

Humbrol acrylic ??? Green is just right for late German field ‘grey’.

Vallejo field grey for most equipment

Early war, Colour Party paints PzGrey for equipment such as ammo boxes.

Bread bag and some Pz Faust, Vallejo olive green

Humbrol acrylic Dunkelgelb for PzFaust, ammo boxes, mortars etc.

The SS were a completely separate body to the rest of the army, they had more money and resources available, they did things differently and as a new organisation got to start from the ground up on some things. Friction between the two organisations meant that the early SS ended up short of weapons and hence the adoption of the Czech zb26 lmg ( virtually identical to a Bren gun), and the MP 28 smg.

A pre war study requested by SS leaders estimated that infantry casualties could be reduced by 15% by adopting camouflage uniforms and hence the SS were the first to use them in combat. In 1940 these were hand printed, and patterns would vary. Also, since there were only 8,000 or so produced, many SS troops went into combat in field grey.

Standing orders stated that no insignia should not be displayed on camouflage uniforms. The order was widely ignored, but some commanding officers would insist that their units stuck to orders. Either all figures in a unit should have them or none.

The eagle on the left upper arm and title on the left cuff make painting SS in their field grey uniforms rather challenging.

The field grey jacket had black lozenges on the collar. These always had the SS logo on the right hand side, but the left hand side differed according to rank, a private just having a black patch.

Note that the smock would usually be worn over the field grey jacket and the collar would show.

As shortages bit, the black leather used in braces and brown in smg/stg ammo pouches was replaced by webbing instead.

The pouches closed using a buckle and tongue arrangement per compartment, which was mostly a light leather brown.

Some braces were a sand/brown sort of colour.

There was a reversible winter uniform fairly widely adopted from 1942 with padded trousers field grey/white and a padded parka mouse grey/white. The parka could have fur around the hood, which was usually black, sometimes brown rarely white.

Sources

Books including excellent colour pictures of real SS uniforms are common. Check out your local discount book store for cheap

books, I picked up "SS regalia" in this way, and it has useful pictures inbetween the flags and daggers nonsense.

Just about any Andrea figures advert in military modelling and frequently a full article about how to make and paint a particular large scale figure.

The Histoire collection German Soldiers in colour has a number of pictures of SS which are very useful.

The best book I have come across for camouflage is ??? Jap pub book which is intended for model makers and therefore both exhaustive but expensive.

The SS are popular with re-enactor groups and these in turn have been used for footage in the Tanks! TV series which features numerous sequences of them running about and blazing away with blanks.

Painting

See Wehrmacht for most points.

Camouflage is the really tricky thing.

There are details like the black tabs with silver press studs used to hold the helmet covers on ( clearly visible on 20mm FAA SS ) but these are nothing compared to the challenge in making camouflage look convincing, recognisable and attractive.

I shade the model first with the undercoat techniques described on my web page.

So long as you thin your paint and apply thin coats you can forget any extra shading, it’s unnecessary and would make a hard job into a nightmare.

Overall, the technique I find best is to exaggerate the feel produced by a camo scheme, look at an example and get an overall impression yourself. Most figures are painted in a rather clinical style which is more photographic than artistic… for camouflage I feel artistic is best.

Paint the clothing overall a light version of either green or brown - a light, bright Vallejo olive green and bright green mix, or Inscribe chocolate brown mixed with flesh.

Then build up the colours over this in irregular patches. You really need to work with a clear picture of an example camo uniform in front of you to get the right feel. Concentrate on getting the larger shapes right. Some schemes had a very bright green in there, miniature paints bright green is good for this.

The really fiddly bit is the spots and small bits, to get these to look OK you need to spot on individually with a fine brush.

As you do each of these steps, you can fix problems and create more interest by carefully overlapping the layers.

Looking at the late version you will see that the dark green and dark brown kind of overlap.

The really spotty camo as fairly common in Normandy is actually easier than the likes of plane tree, you need not take as much care with your basic splodges and dots are easy.

Anyone who jumps out a plane regularly is usually concerned about anything that might effect the working of their parachute. The German approach to avoiding things getting stuck in their lines was to wear most equipment under a big bulky jump smock reaching to the knees which had flaps tied between the legs to keep things tucked out the way.

The helmet was a bit smaller with less lip on it than the regular German tin hat, and with rubber padding aside to reduce any crunch to a boiiing.

The soldier jumped with pistol and hand grenades, his other personal weapons were stored in containers. ( You can get these, in lead for an added interest to a game ).

On Crete, where they dropped straight into action, at least one group had so little time they didn’t collect their main weaponry and were forced to fight with pistol and stick grenades.

There were three phases the uniform went through. ??? Check correct ???

Early war ( as in Eben Emael ) grey trousers, darker grey jump smock.

Mid war (Crete) Dark green on lighter green splinter smock, grey trousers.

Late war (Normandy) …

British battledress varied in slight details during the war. Other than the webbing gas mask case carried on centre chest by the BEF, their uniform was much the same as most worn at war’s end.

The uncomfortable and scratchy low quality battledress was a mid brown colour. The khaki webbing was blancoed in theory, in practice combat troops usually dropped this task.

At the top of each sleeve, and following the curve of the seam is a label with the regiment name on it, as white on red backgournd. There were various badges could be worn under and between this and an NCO’s stripes. These could be the red dagger on black for commandoes or proficiency (rather like Scouts badges) in things such as driving, swim 25 yards etc.

Boots black.

Officers belts and straps can be saddle brown, but webbing often worn in the field.

Sources

Histoire collection does two excellent books on ‘the British Tommy’ showing clear colour pictures, with explanative text.

Painting

Vallejo British khaki, or colour party paints staffwood for uniform.

Mix of Colour Party Paints blanco and khaki for webbing

The huge losses in manpower suffered by the Soviets in 1941 meant a correspondingly large turnover of new soldiers and their uniforms.

The quality of uniform which the troops started the war in was not particularly high, and it went downhill from there for a while.

The common uniform colour was called khaki, but this had an unusually wide definition. Uniforms varied from an ochre through a sort of dull chocolate brown, with various sandy green through camo green increasingly common towards the end of the war.

Photos taken of troops in action and prisoners, show that a mix of uniform shades was fairly common in front line units.

Scouts and snipers were issued with a very baggy coverall with hood. This was khaki camouflaged with large ‘mickey mouse’ shaped darker patches in brown or black.

For snipers, this could also have raffia ‘grass’ attached all over which gives a similar sort of effect to the modern gear of US snipers, or at least as portrayed in action films.

Khaki uniform, Raspberry red markings on collar early war, on shoulder boards 1943 onwards.

Decorations were usually worn in combat.

Belts and straps often khaki, but sometimes leather for the common soldier, usually leather for officers.

Rifle ammo pouches leather, smg ammo pouches khaki with leather straps.

Boots black or brown, long or short with khaki puttees.

There were 13 million short brown US boots kicking about somewhere on the Eastern front.

Paints

Ochre: Miniature paints sand, with a varying amount of mid brown added to take the edge off the brightness.

Brown: Inscribe Chocolate Brown +- very small amount of any dull green.

Green: Colour Party Paints’ Russian Green with Pz Grey for the Grey-green on helmets

I like: Miniature paints sand, touch of Vallejo Soviet Khaki. To shade, mix in dab of Winsor Newton Peat ink

Khaki: Colour Party paints

Leather: Vallejo Saddle brown highlighted miniature paints leather.

Sources

Red Army uniforms of WW2 in colour photographs, Europa Militaria