Early War German Armour - Panzer Grey Made Interesting! [How I Paint Things]

Before there was ambush pattern or splinter pattern camo painted onto German tanks, it was (mostly) all simple, plain grey. One of the neat things about early war German vehicles is that they're relatively easy to paint, but plain grey can be just a little dull on the table. Here's how I put a little more colour into 'ordinary' grey and have some fun painting German armour for the blitzkrieg!

00:00 - Intro
00:30 - Assembly Notes & Priming
01:41 - Washing & Basecoats
08:44 - Weathering: Chipping & Dust
15:22 - The Finished Tank

Thanks to Producer Patrons Alan Nuttall, Kyrie Crawford, Andrew, Jimmy, and Rod - as well as all the other Patrons that made this video possible, and Exit23 Games for recording equipment that helps keep the channel ticking over! Find out more at the following links:

PAINTS USED:

PRIMER:
Mechanicus Standard Grey (Citadel Spray)

ARMY PAINTER:
Strong Tone
Dark Tone

VALLEJO:
Blue Grey Pale
Burnt Umber
Oily Steel
German Grey
Orange Red
Beige Brown
German Camo Black Brown
Red Leather
Flat Earth
Brown Sand

VARNISH:
Anti-Shine Matt Varnish (Army Painter Spray)

[Game-Boy.]

I love your tutorials, top-quality content. Many YouTube’s should learn from you. Your tutorials are properly structured, professionally narrated, informative and entertaining. Please continue the good work!

[naughtiusmaximus]

God Bless your Grandpa, he sounds like he was a good man. Great advice for a little fella! Love the painting advice!

[OneofInfinity.]

Beautiful finish, I recently painted a couple of early 1/100 Panzer III's in the "Blitzkrieg scheme", I used a darker panzer grey and very lightly highlighted with lighter and lighter ratios of Luftwaffe ww2 uniform mixed with panzer grey.

[Anlushac]

I build 1/35 armor and I watched this hoping to learn something I can apply to my kits. You did not disappoint. Thanks for the video.

[Farrelbf]

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to produce these wonderful tutorials! I have trawled Utube long and hard in search of the ultimate guides to scale model painting and finishing and you sir are way above the rest🙏🏻 Never too complex or too detailed yet always astonishingly realistic your advice and methods are always possible to implement accurately and I can honestly say my game has significantly improved since following your posts😊 Definitely my go to channel for instruction!

[adamdews]

Brilliant as usual, my painting tip for rubber Road wheels or tyres is to mix 50/50 black and black/dark grey contrast paint, this then runs around the wheels quickly and helps prevent getting it on the hubs etc.

[SPDDPrinting]

tanks for the tips! I am working on early war for Italians, Greeks and Germans. This was very helpful. A video on painting Italian vehicles in Europe would be fantastic.

[StaGusGbg]

Wow, you have outdone yourself with this one 'sledge, that's really good. I love how the cold grey contrasts to the warm tones of the weathering. Great way of adding interest to a "boring" paintscheme.

[AF-kjzl]

The blue gray looks nice! Great video again!

[_BhS]

I find that you can get really cool metal textures by hand painting the base color (In this case the mechanics gray). It makes a more uneven coat and creates darker spots, which makes a more metal-like appearance.

[huwtindall]

Bloody great work. All the scale model aficionados would be jealous of your result. Mechanicus Std Grey is amazing as it's much bluer/lighter than the "official" RAL colours for German Grey. I bought a pot from vallejo and it's dark it's almost black. I believe this is accurate colour wise BUT as we know on scale models you need to paint them lighter than actual colours given the scale impacts. With the tracks your video using Dryad Bark as the base coat changed my 40K and scale model hobby life. So good to get that brown/rust/dirt look onto a track before adding some silver/rubber depending on the track type.

[matiashideki]

Your grampa's quote made me instantly like the video! Love your tutorials cheers from Brazil!

[johnkelley]

I sprayed a Leman Russ tank with the Mechanicus Standard Grey a while back and I thought it was a great start to a Panzer Grey finish and watching your technique I will try it on a few Panzers I have. I especially like the blue grey dry brushing and the dirt effect on the running gear. Thanks for sharing this and I will certainly reference this tutorial again.

[zascar]

I'm going to try this method on the big Cadian tanks, thanks for all your tips you help us a lot !!

[Hermitmaster]

Another excellent video. Really enjoy your style...and then you paint tanks and I'm like YES! TANKS!

[Mittens_Gaming]

Really lovely way to make the early war grey much more interesting!

[ARed-TailedHawk]

Excellent as always. I love the slight bluish tone of the gray, and the restrained weathering. It all makes for a very realistic but acheivable method. I look forward to applying this to blitz Germans sometime.

[RuthlessMojo]

I have a ton of Flames of War German tanks to paint. I have 3 starter sets, 2 army boxes and a large amount of infantry to paint as well (I went on a spree). I'm a big WW2 buff (because of my grandfather) so collecting Flames of War was a no brainer. Germany's tanks were a huge reason why the German war machine was so devastating. The Panzer 3 & 4 and the Tiger were really impressive pieces of engineering. Still looking forward to your Italian builds.

[thelonepainter]

Great job as always Troy! I love seeing you paint big miniatures from time to time.👍🏽👌

[igelkott]

nice paint job! thanks for the tutorial. When I paint my tanks I like to leave the tracks and bogies as separate as I can so I can paint them separately and then glue them together afterwards. Sometimes though it isn't possible especially with prints.