German AFV in Africa paint set

The African campaign and its two color stages

Equipment sent to North Africa did not lose its European finish straight away. Vehicles were landed in dark gray and received their desert finish only on the spot, at first a pair of green-brown and khaki gray that the regulations introduced in the spring of 1941. In the desert light that pair proved too dark, and so from the beginning of 1942 a lighter pair of brown and gray replaced it, used on Crete as well.

The set holds all four desert tones at once, together with the original European gray and the cream shade that the inner spaces of closed vehicles were painted with throughout the war. It is exactly this selection that allows a vehicle to be built for a precisely defined period: in the winter of 1941 with gray showing through worn desert paint, or in 1943 already in the light finish alone.

Working with the desert shades

Desert finishes hold one trap on a model. Close up they look flat, because they lack the contrast that dark patches created in Europe. The answer is to work with variation inside a single surface: lighten the roof and the upper parts of the panels, and darken the lower parts and the shadows. It also pays to let the base gray show through on the edges, where the paint wore away most.

The interior that gets forgotten

The cream shade of the closed spaces tends to be overlooked on models, even though it is visible in every open hatch and behind every raised cover. A light wall also helps when photographing finished work, because it reflects a little light inside and the details within do not disappear into black shadow.

The paints are lacquer-based, they sit in a thin coat and they take further coats of varnish and pigment without dissolving the finish beneath. They thin with the thinner of the same brand.