It's just good old Halford's car primer white, nothing special but seems to work well. Covers and dries nice and smooth and hardly any loss of detail (it isn't too thick).
While this was drying I popped out and purchased the Vallejo paints that PSC recommended for doing the uniform, the main ones are:
• Helmet - Brown Violet 887
• Trousers - US Field Drab 873
• Jacket - Stone Grey 884
• Webbing - Buff 976
• Metal - Gunmetal Grey 863 (I've been using Tamiya acrylic gunmetal and it's horrible).
I've decided that I like Vallejo in comparison to the other acrylics I've tried - Tamiya, Revell and Humbrol. The are a consistency I like, the range is superb and the little bottles are really handy (and less messy).
As reference for how the colours might look I have turned once again to the Combat! TV series - this time the later episodes which were in COLOUR (1967)!*
* I was going to say that I don't remember this TV show being in colour - I seem to only remember it being in monochrome - but then I remembered that we only had a black & white telly until the late 1970s! I remember I threw a sicky from school the day the Radio Rentals guy brought our new colour TV (a 25" Bush). :)
While I'm an inveterate Grey-Undercoater, I tend to basecoat everything I'm going to use Brown-Violet on with black - otherwise I find it tends to look a bit too light. I also tend to use English Uniform for the trousers, and only really use Field Drab as a highlight, as - again, it's a bit light for my liking.
ReplyDeleteYMMV of course - or you may be more comfortable mixing to get the shades right. I had ninety-odd of the buggers to paint for a D-day game next month, so was looking to use as much out-of-the-bottle as I could...
...Just found out what you mean about the Field Grey! Woof! Nowhere near the brownish colour I expected. And yes I can see how it would make a good highlighter. You live and learn! (But I guess that's the good thing about doing test figures first.)
DeleteI looked up a few colour tables online and that 'English Uniform' (Vallejo 70.921) colour you mention crops up quite a lot so I will nip out and get a bottle of that today. Even the Stone Grey PSC recommends for the jacket is a little light (I expected more of a buff or light tan colour).
Like you say, working with colours out-of-the-bottle is handy (though maybe a bit more costly) as it makes it easier to get consistency I suppose.
Cheers! Good luck with the D-Day game! :)