"Painting a Tiger I using Vallejo Paints Color Question" Topic

I'd like to paint up a couple Tiger I tanks and I wanted to ask for help choosing the correct colors using Vallejo paints which are available to me locally.

If possible for a base color is there a recommended Vallejo Model air color? Any help would be appreciated.

I believe you need to provide more information as to what model of Tiger I you are using, early or mid or late, and where it is serving such as Africa, eastern or western fronts.

I used Dark Yellow as the base color and then added camo stripes/shapes in green and brown, which ones exactly I can't remember. What I do remember is that I looked at a tutorial and the colors specified there were far too dark for my tastes (and at 10mm scale), so I just used ones that looked similar but were brighter. In the end, due to massive supply problems, troops sometimes using water instead of precious fuel to liquify the color pigments they received, weather, and last but not least slight differences in composition when mixing them in the factories, I'd say it's okay ;)

link

TMP link

link

Edit: I might have used one of Battlefront's color guides from one of their mid- or late-war books as a starting point.

@ Joe

Yes. That would be more helpful. It's a 1/48 scale tank. I am using it in the European theatre. Western Front. Early War. Sorry for being so vague. I'd prefer a standard "grey" color pallette.

And any suggestions on decals would be greatly appreciate.

@ Cherno

Thank you for the links!

Cherno fantastic links!

I think I'll go with this..

Grey: July 1940 – Units were issued stocks of dark grey (Dunkelgrau) and instructed to paint their vehicles in this single color. This is the ubiquitous "panzer grey" camouflage. Vallejo 995

Is there a good place to pick up the standard 1/48 scale tank decals?

IIRC some time before Dunkelgelb was introduced as the standard AFV color, some vehicles had green stripes added over their Panzer Grey base color. Or was it brown? :D

The Tiger of course was a mid to late war tank, its combat debut IIRC was in late 42-43 in North Africa. I don't think that any Tiger Is were ever painted "Panzer Grey".

Hmmm. Alright. I did pick up PAINTING WAR ISSUE #1 WWII GERMAN ARMY and I hope there are some tutorials in there for painting tanks. Why do I see "Early" War Tiger I's then?

Production of the Tiger I began in August of 1942. A platoon of 4 Tigers participated in operations around Leningrad in September of 1942. After that a battalion was deployed to the Don Front, arriving too late to participate in attempts to relieve Stalingrad. The first Tigers in North Africa went into action at the beginning of December 1942.

No Tigers before that and "Panzer Grey" had been dropped as a standard tank production color before Tiger production started. If you are looking for "early war western Front, i.e. France 1940 then you are locked into PzKmpfw I-IV, as well as some Czech 35 and 38 Ts.

The Tigers that were deployed to Russia in the Winter 42-43 were painted dark grey (with the usual rough coat of white paint and snow).

Source: Panzer Colors Vol. I.

As above, the first Tiger battalions in Russia were panzer grey. The ones sent to Tunisia weren't:)

This is covered in various bopoks, see e.g. Wolfgang Schneiders numerous and comprehensive works on Tigers, which even detail the colours the individual turret numbers were painted.

For a bit more info on 'early/mid/late' Tigers, this is referencing the modifications made during the production runs, rather than the period in the war – initial Tigers had an 'early' style cupola, rubber road wheels, and various other visual identification factors – as time went on the cupola changed, a pistol port was replaced with a loaders hatch, the road wheels became steel and reduced in number etc etc – So while there were no 'early war' Tigers, its possible to easily distinguish (if you know what you're looking for) 'when' your Tiger was built – and therefore there are 'early', 'mid' and 'late' variations to cater for the cognoscenti!