Tutorial: How to Paint Miniature German Soldiers

This is a tutorial on how to paint miniature german soldiers from the World War 2 period. There are a few different variations you can use and I will explain these. And because you are working in the 1/72 scale you don't have to worry too much about accuracy or fine details. In this scale a six foot tall soldier is only one inch in height. The miniatures are just not that detailed. But I will show you how to get the most out of them.

The soldiers I use in this tutorial are from a Italeri model Anti Tank gun. The kit comes with two anti tank guns and six crewmen for each gun.

WWII German PaK 40 Anti-Tank Gun w/12 Soldiers 1-72 Italeri

This is the German Anti tank Gun that comes in the kit. There are two of them. This one is painted and ready to go into a diorama.

Some General Color Guidelines for German Soldiers:

• Pants, Tunic and Helmet: Typically A shade of grey. Stone grey works well and looks good.
• Belt and Boots: Usually black but you can vary the belt and paint it brown
• Straps and miscellaneous small items on belt: Typically brown but you can paint the items a dark green and keep the straps brown
• Collar: Green or Black
• Shoulder Boards: red

The German Soldiers in the picture above are carrying artillery rounds not rifles!

The Italeri Recommended Colors -Along with this kit of soldiers and anti tank gun Aliteri gives us their recommendations for how to paint the miniatures:

• Cap, helmets, clothing: Feldgrau (field grey)
• Boots: Black
• Face and Hands: Flesh
• Tops of boots: Medium Green
• Artillery Round: Steel
• Tip of Artillery Round: Flat Yellow

The picture below shows six figures in various stages of paint. The process I typically follow is

1. Boots and belt
2. Straps and accessories
3. Hands and face
4. All the Grey including helmet and clothing
5. Final touch up of all colors

Some Tips:

Just about the most important thing is the brush you use. Get the best brushes you can get and make sure they are very small! The quality of the brush will directly affect the quality of the paint job.

Do not rush and do not apply the paint too thick. If it is too thick it will ruin the finer details in the miniature.

When painting you will get a real good sense for the paint. You will notice that it goes on very wet and quickly starts to get a good tack. At this point where the tack is just right it will spread very evenly and smoothly. Quickly though it will get a bit too tacky and be difficult to spread evenly. So choose small areas to paint and work with the drying and the tack to get the best results.

Finishing up

There are two painting techniques you can use to get the most out of your miniatures:

1. The Washing Technique: Once the paints have dried you take a small amount of black paint, put it on the brush and then dip it in water so it is very wet. You then brush this lightly onto the miniature. The black color will run down into the cracks and folds of the clothing and form dark spots there. Brush it around good so the black isn't on the high spots of the clothing. You only want it to be in the cracks and folds.

2. Dry Brushing Technique: This is the technique of getting a little bit of light colored paint on the brush then wiping most of it off. You then gently brush the surface of the miniature just in the high spots. It will leave trace amounts of the color on the high parts of the fabric that the miniature is wearing. About the dry brushing color: Typically you take the color of the garment and add mix some white with it so it is a shade or two lighter than the actual garment color.

FOUNDRY MINIATURES PAINTING AND MODELING GUIDE

Here is a brief tutorial showing you how to make a 1/72 Scale Tiger Tank Revell Model. This tank is part of my Tank Diorama project: Making a Model Tiger Tank

1/72 Scale Sherman Tank - This is a brief tutorial on making this Revell Sherman Tank. This is part of my How to Make a WW2 Tank Diorama Tutorial. The Revell 1/72 Sherman Tank Model

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Table of Contents for this tutorial

1. Miniature Home
2. Miniature Painting intro & overview
3. Painting Miniatures Tutorial start
4. The Paints
5. Preparing the Miniature for painting
6. Priming the Miniature
7. What to paint first
8. More Painting and the details
9. Close-up of the completed Warhorse
10. Adding texture to the base for realism
11. Tips and hints for painting miniatures
12. Diorama and Miniature supply Store
13. New Painting Miniature Tutorial: A Spartan Warrior
14. VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to paint miniatures
15. Miniature Paints and kits at Amazon
16. Ral Partha Miniatures
17. Links and info about manufacturers of miniatures
18. Understanding Miniature Scale
19. How to Make Foam Terrain for wargaming or dioramas

Sculpting Fantasy Miniatures

NEW: How to sculpt fantasy miniatures

1. Part 1 - intro
2. Part 2 - Drawings
3. Part 3 - Making Wire Armatures
4. Part 4 - Your first miniature 6"
5. Part 5 - Make a 3" miniature
6. Part 6 - the musculature of the 3" miniature Viking Warrior
7. Part 7 - Our first Armor - we sculpt the viking helmet
8. Part 8 - Sculpting leather and chainmail
9. Part 9: Adding Belt, bracers and boots
10. Part 10:Painting the miniature
11. Part 11: 25mm Female Warrior
12. Part 12 : The basic shape of the mini
13. Part 13: Completing the body
14. Part 14: Adding the swords and doing detail
15. Part 15: Painting and finishing the miniature
16. Sculpting Fantasy Miniatures Video Tutorials
17. Sculpting miniatures store- all the supplies you need.
18. Sculpting tips

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