Just by browsing my site, one can tell that I enjoy painting German forces the most.  This is my first attempt at non-German forces since my return to 6mm.  I've recently purchased some American, Italian, and Russian vehicles so I plan to try some more in the near future.  All paints are Vallejo, except where noted.


As is the case with all miniatures, these French tanks had flash....  quite a bit too.  I had to pick my battles and realized that I just wasn't going to get all the mould lines off; if you look close you can probably notice some of them.  I tried something new for removing flash on these tanks (since they had some sensitive areas around rivets, etc.  Some GHQ forum members suggested using a Dremel so I gave it a try; it worked fairly well.

Once you have the miniatures cleaned up, mount them on something you can grasp during the painting process and then primer them white.  I used White and airbrushed a good smooth coat for the primer.


Your basecoat color should now be applied in a watered down wash consistency - I was shooting from the hip so I don't have exact measurements but I think I used 2 drops of water to each drop of paint.  Base coat for these tanks is Green Ochre.  My initial reaction on painting this step was that the basecoat was too light; try not to worry about this too much as the next few steps (especially the wash) will darken the basecoat.


Next apply camo pattern; use the same watered down paint for the camo (with maybe a few drops less water).  If you look at the picture you can see what I feel is one of the strong benefits for using this method - notice the rivets and raised detail are still highlighted.  I'm horrible at drybrushing, it never seems to come out right for me so this method works great for me.  My camo colors here are Reflective Green and Flat Brown.


Mix up a black/brown wash and apply everywhere.  I used 502 Abteilung oils.


Paint the details now:  muffler, tracks, etc.  I used Hull Red for the tracks and muffler.  Then dry brush your tracks with Natural Steel (or the metalic color of your preference).  Once this is all dry, coat your tanks with a good coat of matte varnish.


Usually, I glue my tanks to the base and then brush my pumice gel ground covering on around it; for this platoon I brushed the ground cover on first and then squished the tanks onto it.  Once the gel was mostly dry, I pulled the tanks up and applied CA glue and squished them back onto the bases again.  I think I preferred this method since it was much quicker and I didn't have to be as careful with the pumice.  Pumice mixture is Vallejo Pumice Gel mixed with Game Color Earth.


To finish the base, give the pumice gel ground covering a black/brown wash once it has dried.  Then, drybrush it with a Stone Grey (or the highlight of your choosing).  Paint the base edges; I used Khaki Grey as it resembles the color of French uniforms.  Last, apply some vegetation and coat with matte varnish.  All done!