painting tiger stripe camo

Start with a tan base. Then lay in the black splotches. They should look like an aerial view of a river delta. Then, lay in the dark green. Bring the green splotches close to the black, but make sure to leave a thin stripe of tan between the black and the green.

 After that, lay in some light green splotches in the same manner. When done, you should have all of the tan covered with light green, dark green or black, except for a thin line separating the three colors. Also, you'll want to lay in some dots of tan in the splotches. On the bigger ones, drop a smaller green dot in the middle, so that you have a small green dot, bordered by a tan line, in the midst of a larger splotch of green or black.

If you're using water based paint, I'd suggest Vellejo, because it's designed specifically for figures, and will brush on very smoothly.

 I rarely use a brush smaller than No.1, but for 1/35th or 54mm figures, you may find a 10/0 or smaller a little easier to work with.

 Here's my example, though it's in 1/9th scale.





You can find some pic on the net, I'm sure, of examples of actual colthing that will be useful. Keep in mind to that there were locally made examples in Vietnam, so the patterns could vary in shape and color. There was even a variation with red-brown instead of one of the greens.

Although you mention wanting to use watercolors, you might want to consider the use of Humbrol enamels for this task.  I used Testors RLM 02 mixed with some flat white for the base, and then Humbrol 159 ( Khaki Green), 160 (Red Brown), and 33 (Black) for the camouflage on the last Vietnam figure that I painted.  The previous suggestions are good of lying down a base color then adding the greens (or green and red brown) and black after the fact.  If it was me doing the work, I would use an 18/0 or smaller brush for the camouflage colors for better control, especially as this is only 1/35 scale.  I would also thin the paint slightly so that you can create smaller lines.

Although this topic is now 10 years old the information is valid. I've been spending a few days researching tiger stripe camouflage developed prior to 1972 and it seems that most of it was locally produced if not all of it locally produced and there was a lot of varietyin shape color and density of splotches.  I am planning to use what has been termed the advisor pattern for my Verlinden 120mm LRRP. 

If any one in our squadron wanted tiger stripe fatigues the commander allowed it, but we had to buy our own.  The flop hats were only authorized after dark and they preferred we wore the fatigues after dark also, and not on the main gate.