Mr. Color - německá šedá

The Panzergrau of the early columns

A very dark gray shifted toward blue matches the factory color of German ground vehicles from the start of the Second World War. Vehicles left the works in it from the pre-war years and the finish held as a uniform standard until February 1943, when a light yellow base replaced it in production. On artillery, on towing vehicles and on part of the vehicle fleet, however, you will meet this gray even later.

On a model the shade has one pitfall: on its own it swallows all the detail. The proven method is to spray a continuous base, then mix a little white or light gray into the paint and brighten the upper surfaces, the centers of the panels and the tops of the armor plates. Only over a surface modulated in this way does it make sense to let filters, washes and a drybrush loose.

The shade also suits subjects other than ground vehicles: gun barrels, artillery carriages, parts of aircraft armament and ship fittings of the same period. It combines well with red-brown and dark green, that is with the colors with which the later three-tone schemes were completed.

The bottle holds 10 ml. The binder is a lacquer and it is thinned only with the brand's own lacquer thinner, at a dilution of roughly 1:1 to 2:1 depending on the thickness. You neither thin nor clean the paint with water. It is applied with an airbrush and once dry it forms a solid, matte-looking film that takes further modeling steps well.

Lay masking tapes and templates down only onto a properly matured film. A dark finish is hard enough, but a fresh surface tears under a more aggressive adhesive and the subsequent repair shows far more on a dark area than on light tones.