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!
Here's the link to where you can grab the STL used in today's video: www.wargaming3d.com/product/p... I have a few of the Night Sky Miniatures tanks and can highly recommend the sculptor's work!
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:
/ sonicsledgehammer
/ sonicsledge
/ sonicsledgehammer
ko-fi.com/docwholigan
exit23.games
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 KZbin’s should learn from you. Your tutorials are properly structured, professionally narrated, informative and entertaining. Please continue the good work!

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I appreciate that!

[@teamkeogh]

Agree 100%. Best miniature painting tutorials on KZbin.

[@1_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.

[@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!

[@Anlushac11]

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.

[@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.

[@paintingpanzers]

You've absolutely nailed that tank! I'm super impressed with that initial basecoat colour, such easy steps which give an absolutely amazing finish. Top stuff as always!

[@loupiscanis9449]

Thank you , Troy . 🐺

[@adamdews1728]

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.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Good call! I'll have to give that a try next time.

[@Jim-yk9if]

Great tutorial!

[@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.

[@TomT531]

Amazing!

[@Mittens_Gaming]

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

[@johnkelley9877]

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.

[@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.

[@SPD3DPrinting]

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.

[@thelonepainter4760]

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

[@zascar80]

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

[@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.

[@matiashideki2570]

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

[@Hermitmaster]

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

[@darioscomicschool1111]

So Great! Thank you!

[@AF-kj2zl]

The blue gray looks nice! Great video again!

[@davidnandrin8825]

Wow, great job Mr. Sonic !

[@PatGilliland]

Great tutorial, I have a bunch of early war kit to paint up.

[@huwtindall7096]

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 SOOOOOOOO 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.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

After a shade and a bit of weathering I think it's pretty much perfect. It's a tough one to try and size up colours from black and white photos, of course, but German Grey for the armour just looks way dark compared to seeing tank crew in black uniforms.

[@igelkott255]

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.

[@samellowery]

Excellent as always thanks

[@stompie51]

Great review. Thanks.

[@justanothercaptain6566]

That tank paint job is Royal Canadian Armour Corp approved! Looks awesome! And you showed how easy that was! Thanks! 😂

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I trust you'd be the expert on the subject, sir! ;D Much obliged!

[@pfcsantiago8852]

Very nice, bit of Shakespeare too.

[@southaussielad2496]

The best in the business 💪 love your work mate

[@alessiodecarolis]

A good example of early war's tanks, not as cool as the ambush scheme but neverthless you achieved an astounding result with really few paints. Valleijo's Panzer Aces are great, but logically painting with them it's needed an heavy drybrushing to lighten the tone.

[@seorwulf1049]

Glad to hear your comments on the weathering especially rust, I cringe when I see the amount of rust etc is put on some models, as you said crews looked after their vehicles plus most vehicles were only a year or 2 old at that time. But also as you said each to their own if you are more interested in the cool factor then go for it

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

What's really interesting is seeing some of the difference between maintained vehicles in the field versus later, colour photographs from Vietnam showing US vehicles that'd been out in a high humidity environment. I couldn't believe just how *fast* some of the gear really did rust in the right conditions!

[@ChuckThatNorris]

This looks soo good!! I want to redo all my Panzers now haha

[@franciscoantoniopastor7024]

Absolutamente fantástico. Muchas gracias

[@theandf]

Interesting as always. Though I must say, I saw some color (not colorized) photos, which you can google for, of early war German armor and it seems the "dunkelgrau" was actually quite darker, almost a black-grey, and not the lighter grey wargamers often use. It also seems *really* early war tanks had some sort of two-tone camouflage (something like brown on grey), which regrettably isn't too interesting to paint.

[@ZAKKANWAKKAR]

"Vell, it's OK but a bit large for my taste. I feel I would just be vlopping around inside of it and I could never park it outside ze Café Rene. If it's all ze same I will stick with my little tank."

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Lieutenant Gruber? Sind Sie da? 😂

[@nickdavis5420]

Oh nice love it !

[@pablocamargo8744]

🙌🙌

[@timothyyoung2962]

Man, I really like how that turned out. Not hard to do either, mostly dry brushing and some simple weathering.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

It's easy to overthink the simple stuff, I find, but a little extra colour doesn't hurt!

[@timothyyoung2962]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio If I was really into the Astra Militarum I think I might do a whole force based around that simple color scheme and method.

[@3tacoman]

Looks great , another amazing video ! Keep them coming And some more Star Wars legion would be sweet , or some more bolt action Japanese

[@gruppenfuhrer45]

Great job mate, and btw you sound like Roger Moore. 😊

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Now that's high praise! 😂

[@thepiratepenguin4465]

Very nice, it looks legit.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

The 38t is one of my favourite tanks of the early war period. I've been looking forward to doing one on the channel for ages. :D

[@Castillo525]

Love your ww2 videos!

[@monitor1862]

Your grandfather was right. I've always been pretty easily amused myself. It's fun to laugh.

[@theministryofminiatures]

Perfect, just what I needed, love your bolt Action stuff! Quick question though, if not mechanicus, would you recommend AP wolf grey or uniform grey? Thanks again and keep up the amazing work!

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Uniform Grey would be the better choice; Wolf Grey is going to give you a very blue tank! 😅

[@bosola7168]

Excellent video as always - you're really helping me get through my project without tearing my hair out. What would you recommend for the base colour and drybrush highlight for a Soviet T-34?

[@andrewkennedy9134]

I really like this one sir...very good indeed. Im going to use this one my new imperial guard project for sure. Very nicely done. Do you use pigments and alcohol (not the consumptive kind, lol) in your weathering at all. A friend suggested I try using a very thin mix of IPA and Vallejo European Earth as a weathring wash over road wheels or similar. Im not sure if it would be as easy as the light drybrush you use?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I've never really had much luck with pigments, since by the time I varnish a miniature they seem to disappear, and I'm not about to go without varnishing stuff intended for the table! You could give it a try, but I haven't really all that much experience; I find the quick drybrush and buff does the job to my liking and doesn't need anything more than paint.

[@andrewkennedy9134]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio yeah....thats kind of what i was thinking. Ill likely skip the pigments as i also need the varnishing for game handling. Thanks.

[@rjlarose5271]

I always thought it was panzer grey and a brownish camo? Atleast thats what I thought it looked like is some of the images.

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

There are some photos with a basic brown camo, but from what I've gathered it seems that the pattern was relatively uncommon. Not totally unheard of, but not as often seen in the field as just straight grey.

[@rjlarose5271]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio thanks for the input. It was only in about 1/3rd of the images I saw so that makes a lot of sense. I might try painting that on some of the blitz tank destroyers when I get around to it.

[@rafal1993]

Hey like always great tutorial. I have one question. Do you put a layer of varnish before drybrush ?

[@marcpaget6636]

Hello. Thanks for this super efficient tutoriaL describing easy steps I tried it but struggled with kind of varnish to be used. I used Tamiya semi gloss but it reacted I think with the army painter wash you have mentioned. When you apply a varnish, which one are you using ?

[@lesliebeilby-tipping6854]

Very nice model beautifully painted. Are you going to do some French tanks being used by the French?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

French tanks are in the pipeline eventually. I really need to figure out a way to do them that isn't too complex - some of those patterns were insane!

[@allbookedup8802]

Hi, long time viewer, first time commenter here. First off, thanks for the excellent videos. Second, a question/video idea - I just bought some Roman artillery and was wondering how you would go about painting large wooden surfaces such as the beams on an onager/catapult or the arms on a scorpion/bolt thrower. Any help would be appreciated - I can't find a decent tutorial for this anywhere!

[@andreaspersson5639]

Oh, good, you did use German Grey on the Grey German vehicle 😛 (Great video, usual high quality, and also something I found interesting... I'm gonna start a 28mm ww2 army or five because of you, am I not?)

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

I get everybody into historicals eventually, one way or another... 😂

[@andreaspersson5639]

@@SonicSledgehammerStudio Oh, you're waaay too late to get me into historicals (my second wargame ever was Flames of War, back in... 2011, I think?). It's just, I've always considered ww2 to fit better in 15mm or even smaller, not in humongous 28mm (that is instead where I have my vikings and ancients and stuff).

[@HyperEwok1]

Does Night Sky sell those physical minis through Etsy, or other platforms?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

There's a page of links to licensed printers on Wargaming3D, but past a point you're probably better off just getting a plastic kit?

[@hidalgohouse3815]

Wait..how do I keep missing the part about the actual base coat before the wash..looks grey blue?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

Because there is nothing between the primer and the wash. 😅 The Mechanicus Standard Grey primer *is* the base coat in this instance.

[@majmarkbrown7816]

what resin brand did you use for your print?

[@SonicSledgehammerStudio]

This is Elegoo Water Washable grey.

[@jpmangen]

Beat up cheap foam brush work easily as the packing foam

[@nikeethanatos4357]

Sounds like Roger Moore

[@steveabarr9175]

looks green

[@Krwekrw]

Love LT vz. 38 best of Czechoslovakia!... in german hands :-( we just made germans stronger...