Panzer Crew Uniform Colours

I think you may want to think about some of the more interesting camoflage patterns worn by panzer crews, especially later in the war (say 1943-45).
Black is good for early war crews, and painting a black uniform can be quite challenging as well. But the camo idea is food for thought and variety. I'm sure there are re-enactor sites online that can give you a good idea of the colour schemes involved. Hope this helps. Cheers.

neudog,
Panzer uniforms were black.
Panzerjager and Sturmartillerie by an official order in 1940 retained the cut of uniform but were of the feldgrau. Though it wasn't strictly enforced and and did not apply to panzerjager units within panzer divisions. There are also several photographs that show some SP commanders and crews wearing the black uniforms. The switch was more of use than trying to separate the crews as anti tank crews and SP crews were more exposed and were preferential to unforms that didn't offer quite the easy silhouette or stand out.

The black uniforms were the product of function and tradition. Black would hide the oil and grease stains that were an everday fact of tank operation and maintenance and the traditional color of the 5th and 9th Death's Head Hussar regiments of Fredrick the Great. And the Liebstndarte regiments of the Napoleonic prussian and Imperial German armies. Their symbol was the totenkopf or deaths head and was carried into the tank regiments of WWI and later WW2

According to orders issued in 1944 panzerjager units and panzer grenadier units within panzer divisions were to wear the black uniforms and units assigned to other formations or under Army or Corps command were to wear the feldgrau.

Feldgrau can be anything from the lighter color of finer weave and texture to a coarser and darker material used later in the war. A color range from light fieldgrey to almost brown.

here's a FANTASTIC re-enactor site. its the 1st. SS panzer division LSSAH. its got great camo pics, and u can even learn conversational german, really!! also look at books by osprey and such, they are a great help

sorry, fogot the site!! here ya'r: http://www.lssah.com/normal_index.htm

Painting black uniforms can be broken into 5 levels.
A base color, midtone highlight, and a highlight, midtone shadow, and shadow.

For a base color of black, I use a very dark blue or a black mixed with blue to create a dark blue. I then paint my midtone highlights with the base + my highlight and then for my highlight I use a very light blue or light grey.

To paint my shadows I then mix my base + shadow, and for the darkest level of shadow I use black or a black lightened ever so slightly to make it just above black.

This gives you a full range of color and provides depth to the figure. Any road dust, grime, etc can be drybrushed if necessary or if you feel that you don't have enough contrast in your highlights you can drybrush your highlight color again.

Paint highlights before shadows as its easier to paint dark over light than light over dark.

By using a no black base coat, you get that depth but it allows you to also use black as a outlining color to define lapels, pockets, buttons, medals, seams, hems etc.

If you find you have too much contrast you can can knock it back by making a glaze of oyur midtone shadow or base coat and do a wash over everything. This will dull out the contrast and shorten the levels of tonal changes on your figure.

With acrylic the more "levels" you use between tones (think of laying acrylic down in layers like looking at a topographical map) the smoother the transition between those levels.

If you are using oils or enamels, you can do the same thing with the basecoat (even with oils I use a base coat of acrylic. It allows me to start doing some nice shading and highlighting without worrying about breaking up the base coat). Then a highlight can be blended with the shadow in a physical blend to make the tonal transition.

Thank you very much for the tips guys, i will add a little blue to my base coat so the shadows can still stand out. i think i will just be random and mix the black and grey versions of the Panzer uniform to get a more varied look. Cheers : )

Write the book Mike, you've got it covered.

Thanks peridexion, only if you do it with me. Your stuff rocks.