"Colours for 6mm WWII troops" Topic

Hi all,
I'm intending to revamp my WWII armies and am wondering if there's a good resource for the colour palettes. I am thinking about the fact that my Vallejo colours might be too dark on 6mm / 300th scale miniatures. My first priority will probably be US, British and German (1943 on). My Soviets look fine for now. So I have a lot of Vallejo paints but I could google equivalents if information was available for other manufacturers' ranges.

Later I aim to do Italians, but I'm not sure if I'll go with 1943 Europe or do a whole desert war collection. (I realise I will be confronted at that point with the 'how to do Bersagliere on tricycles' issue :~D)

Any assistance/guidance/direction appreciated.

Cheers,
John

In that size lighter colors are better. A can of spray paint of your choice and some dry brushing will do the trick unless you are going to examine them with a microscope. Pick out bits and piece such as rifles, boots, and helmets. A dot of whatever passes for "flesh" and it's done.

Vallejo will be absolutely fine but the typical uniform colour, let's say light tropical khaki for desert troops, should be thought of as your base colour. Then apply dots of a lighter sand colour onto the middle of the upper arm, the middle of the forearm, upper thigh, upper part of the back, etc. It will really make the figures pop on the table.

Here is an illustrated painting guide that I prepared:

link

Robert

As Robert says, use the standard uniform colour as the base and then just paint or drybrush a highlight colour eg base plus a dollop of white. Pick out the details and job done.

Having painted a fair amount of 6mm WWII and even some more Modern infantry, I agree with lighter colors.

I prime, undercoat white, and then add the base uniform color over the whole figure.

I do all the detail work and then use a black or brown wash over the figure to make things pop even more.

Here are a few pictures. These are pretty close-up and of course you won't see a lot of the details from 2 or 3 feet away. These figures have excellent detail for their 6mm size.

GHQ Late War German Infantry

GHQ WWII Russian Infantry

More GHQ Late War Germans

Russian Infantry close up

GHQ Afrika Korps

GHQ WWII American Infantry

Very nice Captain Pete. If I could achieve that I'd have had to have died and gone to heaven already :~}

Cheers,
John

The Capt. does such great work!

You might also consider the Army Painter Tone wash technique – this also starts by coverage over a white undercoat (and this perhaps for your initial/base uniform colors)…..then add the detail colors on with opaque painting.

Not WW2 but some British gunners from the Napoleonic era:

Robert

Gasp!

Robert, those are awesome looking.

Thank you. Here are some Napoleonic era British riflemen:

You can see the dot and splot method that highlights the base colours.

Robert