"Sci Fi Camo Pattern Types" Topic

Hello gamers.

I'm looking to differentiate my forces by not only giving them different tech types, and different paint schemes, but by broadly using widely different camouflage schemes.

I notice that with actual military camo, there appear to be variations in the number of colors used and the relative size or thickness of each color, but many if not most are still some variation on the blobs (and/or sticks) approach.

If one were to limit oneself to a three-color scheme, and focus on differentiation through use of a broad variety not just of pattern but of type of pattern, could one come up with half a dozen instantly recognizable types?

From fawning moonstruck over the paint jobs in White Dwarf, on various blogs and on this very forum, I note that sci fi paint schemes also feature some of the following:

1) less "terran" schemes of green, brown, mustard, gray, black and more "space/urban" blue-on-blue-with-blue or suchlike

2) more geometric camo schemes, whether they be "digital" squares, trapezoidal areas, rectilinear areas, puzzle-piece, hex/diamond "smart camo/ECM" overlay, etc.

My question is this. Blobs are great and they come in all styles and sizes (and by blobs here I mean the sort of effect one can achieve with blue tack, silly putty or the like), but what else is there?

Broadly, how many kinds of types of camo (not types of blob camo) can you distinguish, have you seen used for 15mm sci fi, and think are worth the effort?

Also, what I'm really after is the technique, as well. Knowing what is great but knowing how is awesome.

Thanks, troopers. Cheers.

Anachary studios and critical mass have some neet stencils for camo types , including hex , tiger, digital . I have made up my own . Sharp splinter with soft surround , distorted digital , jagged urban . You tube has numerous how to videos.

link

since THEY have opened their minds to the fact that "digital camo" does not work when seen by the Mark 1 eye ball. this form of camo will die out fast but not fast enough. It has the "looks cool factor" but it does not work as camo in the real world.

Ah, thank you.

I knew there must be a product that would save me from hours with a hobby knife and frisket.

I did a little wikipedia reading, and I already think that the following will serve my purposes as distinctive without being green/brown/black blobs and wll be in keeping with previously selected faction paint schemes.

This "Berlin" camo seems perfect for the "peacekeeper" forces.

This whitewash over traditional camo might be great for the heavily-weathered, war-weary, over-extended superstate faction.

This low-vis/stealth design will work for my hi-tech "returnees".

This "coastal patrol" disruptive pattern seems like it will be fine for my "hover-tech" Third Terran Superstate faction.

I'm thinking variations on this "earth above sky below" camo might be fun for all factions, especially on VTOLs, drop pods, dropships, gunships, grav-bikes, grav-tanks, jump-mechs, etc.

This super old school "Dazzle" pattern might be neat for my "old school labor insurgents" irregular faction.

And this "silvered fish" "screw it" bare metal approach might give be appropriately retro-meets-alien-androids feel to my "are they really aliens?" faction.

I wonder how fun these techniques will be at 1/100 scale.

IMO, the easiest and fastest way to do camo is to take an old toothbrush and spatter the different colors. However, this makes accurate/effective camo. IE, it blurs you models, which you may not like. It's also a bit messy.

For my Soviet Engineer-Sappers, I only used 2 camo colors (well, 4, but 2 sets of 2 colors), and just kinda stippled the dark over the light to make the "Amoeba" pattern. The green camo was Vallejo Model Color 924 Russian Uniform base with splotches of VMC 979 German Camo Dark Green, and the brown camo was VMC 880 Khaki Grey with splotches of VMC 822 German Camo Black Brown.

I'm doing a very unusual WW2 US Army camo pattern (same as the Marines, saw ~3 months use in Normandy), with a base of VMC 821 German Camo Beige and largish spots of 888 Olive Grey and 822 German Camo Black Brown over the top. Again, this is more stippling with a worn-out GW small drybrush.

For Multicam, you need 5 colors. I'd start with a base of Khaki Grey, some splotches of Reflective Green and Chocolate Brown (both thinned with glaze medium), and then a spatter of Camo Black Brown followed by a spatter of Stone Grey. Once all that dries, I'd give the whole model a brown wash for shadows.

One of the tricks you can do with a camo pattern is to change the relative coverage proportions. The US Army's MERDC camo has 4 colors where two colors are thin stripes that each cover roughly 5% of the vehicle (black and sand, usually). Most of the WW2 German tricolor camo patterns aimed for 1/3 coverage for each color.

There are two different theories for camo: color theory and shape/outline theory. Some camo aim for following both equally, but most camo focuses on one or the other.

Flektarn and Multicam are color camos, while most of the "digital" camo patterns are shape/outline breakers.

The most extreme examples of the shape/outline breakers are the various naval Dazzle schemes. I almost forgot the Berlin Brigade camo, which is another great shape/outline breaker camo.

It's been generally noted by armies that the best camouflage for a moving vehicle is a single, solid color. Sure, NATO common camo is three colors, but that's for a mostly defensive force that spends more time hiding that moving. Afghanistan is actually pretty green in places like Helmand province, but the Army stayed with desert tan vehicles because they were mostly on the move.

If one of your forces is a rapid-deployment type that basically never stops moving, I'd strongly recommend their vehicles be a single solid color. Could be tan, could be urban gray. Could even be UN (more brownish/creamy) or arctic white ("pure" white, though I'd use a neutral gray and lighten it to white, not a brown or a blue). Hammer's slammers would be a good example, and all of their vehicles are bare iridium metal.

If you want to do feathered edges on vehicles, I suggest using some heavy paper on top of the poster putty, with a bit of the paper overhanging the poster putty. A really neat effect is when you have a mix of hard and soft (feathered) edges to your camo pattern.

As far as techniques… tape? Frisket? Silly putty? Stencils? Granny plastic? Mesh bags? Tiny puzzle pieces? Links, photos, blogs, vids, recs, paints, etc. all welcome. Distinctive camo on tiny tanks. Suggestions?

Grommet

How to with white tac

link granted on a 28mm vehicle but not a big one and the technique works well on either scale.

Also jagged dazzle camo (again in 28mm but…) Slammers on Oltenian campaign.

Blue three colour 'cloud' Camo (light blue, dark blue and light grey) done with soft paper cut out masks held just off the surface on the TAS and silver 'we just don't care' Slammers.

We are losing some of the 'three colouredness' because of the over wash shading. See more of the blue camo here link

Examples of spray through a net bag.

The first in 28mm with an air brush:

The second in 15mm (allbeit on very large vehiels for the most part) using the same net bag and spray cans.

More of the build up for those schemes here: link

I hope that helps.

John T

hammers-slammers.com

John,

That'll keep me busy for a while.

As always, thanks for the informative and illustrative post.

Cheers,

soon-to-be-grognard-53

Grommet,
Again, thanks for gathering all this info.

I ordered a few of the stencil s from critical mass games…

Some good inspiration would be to buy a German armor book circa ww2…

Shades of green never go out of style!

Osprey books come to mind

A long time ago I painted up some GW Imperial Guard in a 'Berlin' / BAOR type pattern that looked surprisingly effective for urban environments. They were painted freehand but I forget the colours now….

I've always wanted to paint up some scifi vehicles in the classic cool-but-impractical blue and grey 'urban' camo style.

Twoball Cane wrote:

I ordered a few of the stencil s from critical mass games…

Some good inspiration would be to buy a German armor book circa ww2…

Shades of green never go out of style!

Osprey books come to mind

Some stencils will end up on the shopping list.

I've been checking out the public library, they've got some great Osprey and Fine Scale Modeler books on modeling, painting, finishing, AFVs, WW2 US armor, dioramas, weathering and the like. I've got a few checked out. 8)

I picked up some cheap Russian tanks kits, and your "shades of green" mantra made me get a bottle of Russian Green, as well!

Chrissy J said:

A long time ago I painted up some GW Imperial Guard in a 'Berlin' / BAOR type pattern that looked surprisingly effective for urban environments. They were painted freehand but I forget the colours now….

Did you do any masking at all? I wonder if there are some kind of tiny adhesive squares that might work.

Zephyr40k wrote:

I've always wanted to paint up some scifi vehicles in the classic cool-but-impractical blue and grey 'urban' camo style. Like this: link

Go for it. It's part of the joy of painting sci fi. :)

Camo colors and patterns should be a function of the environment the force is being deployed in, not as much a function of the native homeland of the force.

If one were to limit oneself to a three-color scheme, and focus on differentiation through use of a broad variety not just of pattern but of type of pattern, could one come up with half a dozen instantly recognizable types?

That said, the number of distinguishable patterns is the product of the number of levels of distinguishable sensitivity for each major category of characteristic you vary. So varying color, shape, and size you get the product of three numbers.

Beyond that, I would guess that you can probably get maybe half a dozen distinguishable shape variants: blobs, squares, triangles, sticks, stripes, zig-zags. You might be able to throw in a few more patterns like cross-hatch or partial (tops are camo, pants are solids).

For size, at 15mm, I wouldn't think you can have much more than two different sizes (large, small) and still be able to easily distinguish them at arm's length on the table.

So, those two factors lead you to 12-16 different patterns.

Ignoring what I said about camo above, colors are where you can really open the aperture. Even working with the idea that camo should match the environment, you can probably easily get four or five different color "styles": dark, pastel, high-contrast (8 or 16 color pallette), neutral (grey based), and maybe metallic.

So, now wer're in the range of 50-60 distinguishable patterns. I would bet other people could expand each one of those dimensions.

As far as technique, I choose a color for a base coat and then use a "stamp" to apply the pattern, or just paint it on. For blobs, rolling up a piece of paper into a tight cylinder is a good approach. For geometric shapes, I cut out a small foam piece. For cross-hatching I pick a light base color and use an ultra-fine Sharpie over the paint.

Some great looking stuff ! Some stuff I've done with my 6mm –

I've used sharpies to add graffiti for scenery and found that the edges 'soften' when hit with one of my dip mixtures (the Future plus ink wash, for one, the Army Painter Dip for another).

As with the use I made of the pens (I actually wanted it to look like it as sprayed on from a tiny spray can!), I think they migh work well for camo if a soft line is what you want.

I'll have to try that.

John T

Check out some of mine.
Hex camo very simple
atropos907.deviantart.com/art/XCOM-Valkyrie-Dropship-298640249

Hex camo, more complicated
thirdfatecreations.blogspot.com/2014/03/lock-n-load-puppets-war-taurus-afv.html

At this link I have a carbon fiber, which camos well enough in a heavily concreted city and a tank with strong contrast differences to break up its shape a bit, also for sci=fi city use
thirdfatecreations.blogspot.com/2013/10/another-new-and-old-model.html

And a more common camo, primarily desert but staying a bit metallic which I thought gave it a touch of sci-fi feeling.
atropos907.deviantart.com/art/F22-Desert-Metal-Camo-XCOM-391615690

You guys do some amazing work.

Truly inspiring.

I forgot one of the neat effects I've seen on Infinity models with "Therm-Optic" (ie, Predator camo): Some parts of the model are painted with the ghosted effect, while the other parts are in a neutral gray or similar. The dividing line between the two is a little bit of Fluorescent paint.

All of the above has been fascinating reading. A core element seems to shine through though, what does your table top look like? Hopefully the paint (whatever) should reflect the terrain.
At the end of the day, it should have a look that is good
to the eye. Your eye and sensibilities. The only sad thing is that the best painted army seems to get shot stupid with bad dice rolls. I caution you….

Yeah, it always kind'a amazes me when I see some paints their army in winter camo … Unless you're board is covered by a white sheet …

Well, I'm planning on doing a "Coldest War" Swedes+US/NATO versus Soviets. I really like the MERDC 4-color paint scheme, as it can quickly be changed depending on what the weather conditions are.

Mine work well with my board or so I think

thirdfatecreations.blogspot.com/2014/02/ufo-incursion-operation-titan-fall.html

I'll be doing an Arctic/Polar/Winter scenario & campaign, so the board will be covered with a white fleece remnant. 8)

A site

link

Yeah, it always kind'a amazes me when I see some paints their army in winter camo…

Or a kewl jungle scheme on a buff(sand) table? ;-.=

Happens all the time in 40K games I see…

My impression is that troops can change camo fairly quickly as needed, but a quick thaw, snow or sand storm, brush fire, whatever, can leave you looking pretty naked.

Jenkins! Replace the fuse in the chameleon circuit!

Doug

Yeah … in the ROK, in the winter we white washed our vehicles … come spring, we washed it off …

My excuse for leaving it on will be that the troops (of one faction) are still operating in an Arctic area, have been in the field for extended periods, in forward areas, and are suffering combat fatigue, as evidenced by the fact they haven't scrubbed off the whitewash when it wasn't needed.

That or buy an entire set of duplicate vehicles.

(Or scrub the tiny tanks every "spring" during the campaign.) ;)

Yeah, I think I'll just rationalize it…