Waffen SS Pea dot camo question?

[mrversatile]

I am a novice figure painter at this stage, but am making my best effort on a set of Waffen SS pea dot camouflaged figures for a current diorama. I am using Vallejo acrylics to paint the camo scheme. This is simple enough but the question of creating shadows and highlights with all the various colors confounds me. I am thinking that maybe a darkened and lightened variant of the dominant colors would possibly work but I don't want to ruin the carefully applied camo. I saw that Vallejo's Waffen SS set contains "Sunny skin tone" to be used as highlights. I don't have this set but if anyone does can you let me know how this is used or if anyone has more experience with this I, am hoping they can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance.

[TRM]

Hiya Gil!! Well, I don't typically do camo...let alone on figures but in respects to the highlights and shadows, typically the paints are thinned almost down to filter consistency and applied in stages...darker tones where you want the shadows...lighter where highlights go. Paints, light the Sunny Skin Tone can be used the same way where the applications are almost translucent and applied in several coats as well as being able to dry brush where needed. If the camo is applied, the translucent applications done over it should show the camo through. It almost looks like there is nothing going on sometimes. Just keep adding layers and build up dark to light as you see needed.

[coro69]

hi mr versatile, in the vallejo waffen ss set they say to highlight each used single color... ;-) for shadows they suggest to unify the whole camo with two really thinned washes with chocolate brown, highlighting with sunny skin tone... but there is no sbs for a pea dot camo only for the platanen (plane tree) camo in spring color and palmenmuster camo in autumn color...

i hope this helps...

[dupes]

That's pretty funny - my current build has basically ground to a halt while I try to figure out exactly the same thing. If I come across something good, I'll let you know!

[mrversatile]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Todd: I get the acrylic layering thing. Did that on some WWII USMC figs in their monochrome uniforms. I just wasn't sure which color to lighten or darken to get the right highlight/shadows of mult colored camo. Coro kind of hit on the colors that may be useful to use over the multicolored scheme.

Coro: Thanks for deciphering the Waffen SS instructions. That may be the solution. One question though; When it mentions to "highlight with each single color," would you think that meant on a bigger figure, since doing that on 1/35 would be pretty difficult, especially with the dots applied. I like the idea of the last part with the filter type blending. This goes with my previous thinking of using lighter and darker shades of the more dominant colors of the camo.

[coro69]

i do not want to take your hope to get it the easy way... :-) i think they also mean it with 1/35 scale... at least i would try it... even if it is cumbersome...

[kaytermarram]

Gil, I highly recommend the book from CALVIN TAN: MODELLING WAFFEN SS FIGURES. From Osprey, check it out on Amazon. This book is fantastic and Calvin sculpted a figure and painted it with detailed instruction, colour mixing etc. in different camouflage patterns, the dot pattern too. This book is, in my eyes, on of the best modeling books ever done. Here it sells around Euro 15,00 so it is a bargain!

Frank

[mrversatile]

Thanks Frank, I will have to look into that book. I am always looking for new information. In the meantime, I have taken the plunge and went ahead and added shadows and highlights to the trousers of one of the figures, (I planned to complete just these trousers first to see if what I decided would work.) I used one of the base colors, "pale Brown" and thinned it like a filter covering all of the trouser which really brought all of the colors together as well as darkening the folds and shadows a bit. I further used this mix to darken specific folds and underneath areas. Using "Sunny Flesh Tone" thinned transparently, I hit the highest areas of the trouser and thinned another base color, "dark yellow" as a transitional color between the aforementioned. This seemed to work well enough in this scale. It blended the camo. while creating contrast without obliterating the detail of the camo design. I think I am going to continue this method for the remainder of the figures.

[kaytermarram]

I think you are going in the right direction. It is one thing to shade a woodland pattern, because you have only four colours to take care of. After applying the basic tone (be it the sandy tone or the pale green), you can shade it the "normal" way. Than go on and add all other camouflage colours and shade them seperatly. Means, every shadow, every light. Lastly paint on the black and "melt" them together with a not so dark heavily dilluted brown tone. For high highlights the good ole skinny skintone in very very high dillution and added carefully is the deal. But the most difficult german camouflages of WWII are really Masterclass...

Frank

[mrversatile]

Yep Frank, I think I will be more than a novice after completing these five figures...lol. If you are going to get wet might as well jump in, but as you said, I am on the right track. I will post a picture of the first figure done.

[coro69]

yes please show us some pictures... excited to see your progress...

[mrversatile]

Well, I finally finished the five figures I am going to be inserting into my dio but I am only going to post one pic here just to show my results with the camo. I like how it came out although the highlights and shadows are difficult to see in this pic. (I will be posting the rest of the figure pics on my dio thread).

[kaytermarram]

The Camo is really well done! Pea Dot IS difficult to handle but as seen not difficult enought for a good painter. So let us see the dio with the figs in it. By the way, which brand are they?

Frank

[mrversatile]

Frank, I currently have a thread started in the diorama section where you can see the progress. I have added the figure pics there if you would like to see them. These are mostly Zvezda figures (4) and one Alpine figure. I chose the Zvezda figures because they were basically the exact poses I wanted in the scene I was going to depict. Thanks again for the response.

[kaytermarram]

Have found it, Gil! If I had looked before...more comments in your diorama thread.

Cheers!

Frank

[dupes]

Shoot, man...looks spot on to me!

[wbill76]

That's an impressive job on the camo pattern IMHO, nice!

[mrversatile]

Thanks guys, I finished my dio and will be posting pics soon. These figures really brought it to life.