Having read all this, I’m sort of glad that none of my builds really call for it. The only vehicle I’ve ever done with “Ambush” on was the Tamiya Hetzer and this was a no brainer, because the scheme I chose was clearly hand painted (it’s the one shown from two angles in FJCabeza’s post, which is a vehicle knocked out at Thionville IIRC). So that’s what I did - hand painted it. But this won’t work for a factory scheme. It seems logical that if factories were instructed to produce such a complicated scheme, that they would come up with templates to speed it up. The “Disc Camouflage” certainly appears to be something of this order and it appears obvious that using these templates you could produce the pattern pretty quickly. Whether this was what WuG 6 intended is neither here nor there.
I believe the factory applied camo on Hetzers were actually done by chalking around wooden disks (2 sizes) then filling in with paint.
Hows your moisture trap? I had that affect me before.
Two of the models I received as Christmas presents, a Meng Jagdpanther G2 and a Takom Jagdpanzer 38 Mid Production, require ambush camouflage.
The Meng Jagdpather features Dunkelgelb dots on a sprayed pattern of Olivgrün and Rotbraun. My airbrush cannot spray a fine, feathered edge so this seems out of reach. If this is a factory applied scheme, I will need to find the real base pattern.
The Takom Jagdpanzer 38 wears disk camouflage. I have not figured out a good way to paint this. My understanding is that the real thing was sprayed using multiple, very elaborate masks. Once again, if this is a factory applied scheme, I will need to find the real base pattern.
It is daunting, for sure. For now, I mostly avoid purchasing and building models with elaborate paint schemes.
There are several videos and tutorials online on disc camo.
I enlarge the painting guide to 1/35 scale and cut it out. I apply masks to the model with small bits of putty or balled up tape underneath each mask along the edges. This raises the masks slightly, giving a very soft feathered look with no overspray. Just don’t have the pressure too high or it will force the mask against the surface of the model, giving you a hard edge.
I’ve done this with NATO-flage many times. It should work equally well with German cammo
As for potential issuea with the moisture trap, once I switched to CO2 it was never an issue again.
Thank you for the suggestion! A few months back, I made a bunch of spray masks and tried that exact technique. It failed rather badly. At the time, it really baffled me because the technique works so well in video demonstrations. (This is a very common occurrence for me, not being able to reproduce techniques shown in books and videos.) Your explanation may have given me the missing clue–airbrush air pressure. My airbrush cannot spray at low pressure. If the air pressure is not dialed up to 25+ PSI, it clogs very quickly.
You can also make the masks out of more substantial material like plastic card stock. I actually made a mask box out of plastic for MLRS Models I was doing for Lockheed Martin. Of course, for one model it might not be worth it but for multiples the rigid plastic works quite well.
Paint your tricolor camo.
Apply a pattern of interlocking discs over the green and red-brown patches – a hole punch and some masking paper will get you those discs or buy premade ones if you can find a suitable size.
Then overspray the area with your yellow base to fill in the spaces between the discs.
You can add a bit more yellow base to blend the patterns or break up large areas of remaining green or red-brown.
This one works well on Hetzers and Jagdpanzers. MAN and MNH were known to use the disc templates.
Daimler-Benz was more for painting the dots on the opposing background colors that we most associate with this paint scheme.
@18bravo That is a good idea. The masks I tested were made from beer boxes and have a fair amount of flex. If my hole punches can handle it, thick plastic should offer more rigidity.
@brekinapez Thank you for the suggestion! If I recall correctly, the real pattern was sprayed in a similar manner.
I was hoping to build the Jagdpanzer 38 for the Fresh Out of the Molds campaign but my painting skills suck so I better hold off for now.
Actually, there are masks for doing just that:
