Painting Stowage

Painting Stowage
By James Brown

As you may have noticed, all of the new platoon and company boxes of vehicles and artillery now come with uniquely sculted vehicles and bases. There's a lot of stuff on those models with a variety of odds and ends ranging from rifles and ammuntion to boxes and barrels. Here's a quick guide on how to paint all the extra bits on your miniatures which will help make them look great!

[Left: Sherman from Sherman Platoon (UBX02)]

Jeremy’s handy tip:

Once you have completed your base coats, Jeremy recommends painting stowage black first, to help delineate it from the rest of the vehicle. It takes a little longer, but it really helps the detail to stand out.

[Right: IS-2 heavy tank from IS-2 Tankovy Battalion (SBX08)]

Tarpaulins and Canvas

Tarpaulins and cover sheets came in all shapes, sizes and colours. The best approach is to pick a colour which is different enough from your main vehicle colour to stand out slightly, but which is still fairly drab and military. If in doubt, Khaki (988) looks good and contrasts well with most vehicle colours. Khaki is also a great colour for ropes and straps.

[T-34 from T-34 obr 1942 Company (SBX01)]

[IS-2 heavy tank from IS-2 Tankovy Battalion (SBX08)]

[Panther from Panther Platoon (GBX19)]

Wooden Boxes

There is no one correct colour for wooden crates and boxes, as wood can appear in any number of different colours, depending on variety and conditions. Use whatever drab brown colour looks best to you, although light colours are better than dark. Some options are Beige Brown (875), Green Brown (879), US Field Drab (873), English Uniform (921), or Khaki (988). Even a light, warm grey such as Medium Grey 987 is not unrealistic for untreated, weathered pine.

You might want to apply a very light dusting of German Camo Beige (821) over the top to help pop the wood colour.

[StuG G from StuG G Platoon (GBX25)]

[IS-2 heavy tank from IS-2 Tankovy Battalion (SBX08)]

Spare Track

Some tanks shipped from the factory with spare track attached to dedicated mounting points. In many cases it would have been sprayed at the same time as the rest of the vehicle, including any camouflage. For more improvised placements of spares, or if you just want mounted track to stand out more, paint it Gunmetal Grey (863) – or a red-brown colour such as Flat Brown (984) for the red-oxide primer on German tracks.

[T-34 hull from T-34 obr 1942 Company (SBX01)]

[StuG G from StuG G Platoon (GBX25)]

Tools

Like spare track, any tools mounted on a vehicle may sometimes have been painted, so you can get away with leaving them the same colour if you wish. Otherwise, most tools are either steel – Gunmetal Grey (863) – wood, or a combination of the two. For wooden handles Chocolate Brown (872) highlighted with Beige Brown (875) works well. Some quick Google research will usually reveal the correct material for each tool, if you aren’t sure.

[Right: Panther from Panther Platoon (GBX19)]

Tow Cables

Rather than painstakingly picking out tow cables in silver or gunmetal, a much faster method is to use a pencil – preferably after first carefully painting the cable black. An ordinary graphite pencil will suffice for a dark metallic finish. For brighter metal, use a metallic coloured pencil, available fairly cheaply from most art supply shops. This works well for highlighting metal tools, as well.

[Panther from Panther Platoon (GBX19)]

[T-34 from T-34 obr 1942 Company (SBX01)]

Assorted Gear

Helmets, packs, bags, weapons and other crew gear are all fairly self-explanatory: just paint them the same as you would if they belonged to an infantry figure

With a little extra effort your tanks will look unique and quite cool. As stated before, always have a look on the internet or at other scale models to see what colours are used for the near infinite bits of stowage. These are valuable sources of information that will help you model your new individually sculpted minatures!