Best colour for German tunic?

[ulverston1]

Hi,
I have just ordered my christmas pressie to me...three packs from the Renegade WW1 range! Happy days-will it arrive before christmas??...Anyway I digress..could I ask what you chaps what is the best colour for the German tunic? I try to use GW colours but I will order (quickly) from anyone as I want to get this right. I will be using a black undercoat, the figures will be late war even stretching to the back of beyond era.
Thanks chaps I need this info pretty quick to get prepared before the figures arrive!
Thanks again.

[Hywel Dda]

I am sure will be many opinions! I (or rather my wife) uses Vallejo German Field Grey 70830 which some might say is more WW2ish and that the WW1 uniform should be more grey in tone (see my answer to the posted question below re painting rates where I have attached some photos of my Germans) - there was per my Osprey books a darkening of the tone of FG from the 1907 tunic to the simplified 1915 tunic, but what with the quality of dies, fading and weathering, re-colouring of B&W pics to colour and variable reproduction of colour plates then whether there is wholly correct answer....personally I don't believe that the German army substantially would have changed its definition per se of field grey in 20-25 years!(look at how long DPM has been around and the colours in that vary widely as anyone who has served in the British Army will know - the variation being down to dies and different manufacturers) Certainly one point is the change in colour more of the trousers where they started with 1907 field grey and then swirched to 1914 grey models - sometimes also given as steingrau (stone grey). The Great War book advocates using Charadon grey over black undercoat and then highlighting - I think charadon is too dark and too grey even for a base colour personally

[pbeccas]

I agree with Hywel, vallejo German Field Grey and then wash it with the Games Workshop Badab Black wash. Makes the Field Grey a bit darker and looks great.

[scarabminiatures]

Yes vallejo field grey is fine.

I use it on the Austrians with a mix of of a camo grey for a highlight.

[ulverston1]

Thanks chaps, I will go with your recomendation of the Vallejo grey and a black wash. I appreciate your response as it saves experimenting and wasting time with repainting etc. Also if I ever move on to WW2 I will already have experience with German uniforms!

[ulverston1]

Hi,
ordered the German field grey and three others besides so I wont be short of choice-also bought some Badab black and an astronomicon (?) grey-phew all painted up! Thanks.

[ScottS]

Just an aside...

WWII "Feldgrau" was NEVER an exact color. Uniforms varied widely in color, especially as cloth and dye quality went down as the war went on. Add in the fact that different uniforms are exposed to different amounts of wear, dirt, and exposure and you'll find that it is more realistic to think of Feldgrau as a range of colors.

I'm a WWII reenactor, and I have a few original WWII German uniforms. None of them are anywhere the same color as any other one.

I strongly suspect that WWI conforms to the same principle; "feldgrau" is not an exact color by any means.

[scarabminiatures]

Scott makes a good point, and its worth using if you want to make subtle differences between units.

By changing the highlight and shade you can make a colour look very different!

Theres a whole bunch of different schemes on the Austrians on the scarab web site. For the French there are even more!

[ulverston1]

Hi,
not come across your website or figures (been out of circulation for a while) so I will check them out, thanks.

[Tirailleur Corse]

Hi All!
First of all I back up the opinion that there is not one but many different shades for Feldgrau.
After trying many mix I found what looks the best for me right out off the bottle.
Comes from... Tamyia (Acrylic) but is not the reference they actually call "Field green" (too much greenish in fact).
The poduct code is "XF-73" or "dark green" though it is anything but green.
Cheers to all.