Camo making

One thing you need to understand is that the brown and green colors were issued in paste form to the crews of the panzers (the yellow was applied at the factory).  It was issued in tins that looked like larger versions of shoe polish tins and was mixed with gasoline (???) and sprayed on using the spray gun that was part of the vehicle BII to get the desired color.  However, reality set in (for some reason it was more important to run the gasoline thru the vehicle engine than to apply it to the outside of the vehicle).  So the paste was mixed with about any liquid that was available (water, used oil, benzene etc) and often straight from the tin and applied w/paint brushes, brooms, rags or other materials.  Which resulted in the final green color to range from black/green to a light pea green and the browns to range from a very deep chocolate brown to very light brown.  The variances depended upon where the unit was when it was issued the paste.

T-rex wrote:

My Tiger backround color is dark yellow then stipes of red brown and forest green, but what's forest green? Is 50% olive green and 50% light green mix will do?

I always think that nitpicking over exact colors is a bit pointless, however generally with German armor, the conventional wisdom seems to be to use Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow, XF-61 Dark Green, XF-64 Red Brown.

As for the actual camo patterns themselves, usually German armor arrived in the field painted with the yellow base coat and it was left to the crews to paint the green and red camo.  Sometimes it was spayed but it could be brushed.  There is a lot of variation.  So if you lack a specific pattern for a specific tank, try to imagine yourself as a German tanker spraying camo onto your Tiger and then try to replicate that onto your model. 

Try to avoid making it too perfect as you camo the deck.  Whereas it is easy to paint perfect lines across the top of the model, in real life, since they lack the ability to fly, such perfection is a lot harder to achieve.  Also be mindful of the fact that in real life the turret is on the tank when it is camoed.  

WHAT!!! This is the painting  and airbrush, this is the place to know how to do Camofloge, let's see what the guys in armor have to say about this!

You may find your answer in the armor section of this forum.  Some of those guys are fanatical with the tank colors and painting techniques.

 

E