Afrika Korps Army Paint, Part II Vehicles
By Dennis Campbell AKA Matt Varnish
Photos by the Author
Hey guys, now I go through my step-by-step for painting vehicles. You need a good drybrush, and optionally, these :
After getting a good dark tan spray down, get your vehicles up to Vallejo (VJ) 879 Green Brown
Now hit your models with a heavy drybrush/overbrush of VJ 914 Green Ochre.
Finally, drybrush of VJ Panzer Aces 340 Afrikakorps Highlight. German Camo Beige works too if you can’t source it locally.
Now we sponge-chip with VJ 994 Dark Grey. Using the foam that is in the blister packs or boxes, dab downwards motion like a drybrush around areas that would have been worn down. The rationale for this is that the first batch of DAK vehicles was sent over in Dark Grey. That color was painted over, but the new tan would wear down, and the vehicles would have heavy us/chipping. So dabbing some grey over the tan simulates the wear-and-tear and creates the look of the grey showing through. I use the same process for weathering the vehicles. For this, I use USA Tan Earth VJ on my LW Allied vehicles with sponge chipping.
Close-up of the sponge-chipping. This is optional but looks good on desert vehicles.
One last, light drybrush of VJ 847 Dark Sand to just weather the grey and make the edges pop. Now we just need to clean up the wheels, add stowage and crew. For stowage, I used VJ 920 German Uniform, VJ 830 Field Grey, VJ 336 Panzer Aces Afrika Korps tank crew.
Now we will use the technical pens for some contrast. The 005 size is small enough to do the writing on my Normandy roadsign!
Pigma Micron pens come in different nib sizes. I use 005, 05 and 03. I also use the BR ones, which is a pen-brush. In this case, I chose brown colour. It allows for more fine control but wears out VERY quickly.
You can see quite clearly where I used the 005 black on the panels of this 8-Rad(7.5cm)
Same concept for my Panzers
There you have it, that’s how I paint my DAK, hope this helps anyone going for the best germans in the war!
Matt Varnish, AKA Dennis Campbell, plays Team Yankee, Flames of War, and Black Powder in the frozen wastes of Canadia. Check out my youtube channel for hundreds of :
Nicely done and a great method!