Painting Early War US Infantry

By Chris Hindmarsh
In this guide we will tackle US infantry, In this guide you'll notice I mix a lot
focusing on early WW2. of colours. Often this is simply
because I'm trying to achieve a
certain shade but I don't have the
For our GIs, we’ll use translucent perfect paint on hand. Don't worry if
paints and glazes applied over a you don't have the same paints as
zenithal undercoat to provide a base me. There are usually many different
layer from which we can apply further ways to achieve the same colour, so
shading, highlighting, and other I encourage you to experiment with
details. With this technique we're what you already have to get a
hoping to get a sense of light falling on similar shade.
the miniature to create contrast that
will make our figures pop on the Our subject for this guide will be a
gaming table, without having to spend 3D-printed US infantry figure from
hours and hours on every model. W3 Wargaming.

In this guide I will abbreviate the

following miniature paint brands:
●
AP = The Army Painter
●
AK = AK Interactive Acrylics

1
Priming and Zenithal Undercoating
The first step after cleaning your
miniature is to prime it. I use a dark
yellowish-brown primer through the
airbrush, but a rattle can will work just
as well.

We’ll follow that up with a zenithal

highlight of white acrylic ink (I use
Liquitex Titanium White) through
the airbrush. Alternatively, for a
smoother and hardier paint surface,
we can substitute the white ink with
Tamiya XF-2 Flat White heavily
thinned with lacquer thinner.

This zenithal highlight is delivered

mostly from above the model, aiming
to simulate the way sunlight falls on
the upper surfaces of the model and
leaves shadows in other areas.

We can also reintroduce some extra

contrast by black-lining some of the
major crevices that separate one
element of the miniature from
another.

We can do this either with

Speedpaints (say an equal mix of AP
Dark Wood, Grim Black, and
Speedpaint Medium) or with an oil
pin wash, using black or dark brown
oil paint thinned with mineral spirits
(aka white spirits).

An oil pin wash has the benefit of

more easily flowing into the recesses,
and any overspill can be cleaned with
a brush or makeup sponge
dampened with mineral spirits.

2
 Basecoating
Now that we have our light volumes sketched in, it's time to add some colour.
For most of the basecoats we’ll use translucent paints to allow some of our light
sketch to show through. I mostly use AP Speedpaints, but feel free to
experiment with other brands like Citadel Contrast and Vallejo Xpress Paints.

For the rifle furniture we’ll use a 2:1 mix of AP

Hardened Leather and Burnished Red
Speedpaints.

For the the jacket we’ll use a 4:1 mix of AP

Pallid Bone and Gravelord Grey
Speedpaints. A small amount of AP Dark
Wood Speedpaint can be added to this mix for
a slightly darker alternative. A second coat of
this mix (slightly diluted with Speedpaint
Medium) can be applied to the shadow areas if
you wish to increase the contrast.

The trousers will be painted with a 3:2 mix of

AP Dark Wood and Brownish Decay
Speedpaints, with a touch of Speedpaint
Medium.

Helmets can be painted with a 2:1 mix of AP

Camo Cloak and Dark Wood Speedpaints,
with a touch of Speedpaint Medium added.

The boots are painted with a 2:1 mix of AP

Burnished Red and Dark Wood Speedpaints.

For the webbing we’ll apply two coats of a mix

containing equal parts AP Desolate Brown,
Gravelord Grey, and Pallid Bone
Speedpaints.

The metallic parts of the rifle and any other

metal elements can be filled in with your
preferred dark metal colour. I like to use Vallejo
Metal Colour Dark Aluminium. Once this is
dry, we’ll apply a mix of equal parts AP Grim
Black and Gravelord Grey Speedpaints over
the metal elements.

3
 Highlighting
To make our soldier pop, we’ll start by highlighting the uniform using standard
acrylic paints.

We’ll keep our paint thinned with water, using

some glaze medium if that helps us control the
paint a little easier. We’ll concentrate our
highlight toward the upper surfaces and the
edges of creases, using our original zenithal
light sketch as a guide.

When applying the paint to the model, we’ll

draw the brush toward the point where we want
the highlight to be strongest. This way we’re
pulling the pigment toward that highest point,
depositing the most pigment where we remove
our brush from the model.

To highlight the jacket, we’ll use AK Grimy

Grey with a tough of AK Grey Green added.
After our first pass, we can add some AK Ice
Yellow to the mixture and apply additional
highlighting to the highest points.

For the trousers we’ll use AK Chocolate

(Chipping), lightened with some AK Light
Earth as needed.

After our first pass, we can add more AK Ice

Yellow to the mixture and apply additional
highlighting to the highest points.

The rifle furniture is highlighted with AK Ochre.

The webbing can be highlighted with a mix of

AK Light Green and AK Ice Yellow.

The metallic parts of the rifle can be highlighted

with the original metal colour, in this case
Vallejo Metal Colour Dark Aluminium.

4
Painting Skin
Let’s spend a little more time on the face since
the viewer’s eye will naturally be drawn to it.

We’ll start by blocking in the face and any other

skin with a couple of thin coats of a warm off-
white such as AK Light Flesh.

Next we’ll apply a thin flesh-coloured transparent

paint. I use AP Peachy Flesh Speedpaint
thinned with Speedpaint Medium.

We will then take some Citadel Carrouburg

Crimson wash thinned 1:1 with water or
Speedpaint medium and apply it to areas of the
face that we would expect to be shadowed or
pinker, such as the eye sockets, the hollows of
the cheeks, the nose, and the lower lip. A couple
of layers can be applied if needed to build up the
colour.

We can then mix up a light flesh colour and

apply it as a highlight to the cheekbones, chin,
the tip of the nose, and anywhere else the light
would catch. For this colour I use a mix of AK
Light Flesh and AP Basic Skin Tone.

To create some stubble, we can use Citadel

Gryphcharger Grey Contrast thinned 1:1 with
water or medium and apply it around the jaw.

A final glaze of Citadel Reikland Fleshshade

can then be applied across the face to give it
some more warmth.

5
 Basing and Finishing Touches
Since our infantryman is destined for
North Africa, we’ll give him a desert base.
We’ll start by creating some basic
landforms to represent a sandy, rocky
environment. For this we can use a
texture paste like AK Terrains Light
Earth, or we can use something like
spackle or ready mixed filler which has a
fine grain. We’ll apply this to our base,
using a damp brush or tool to shape it.
While it is still wet, we can press in some
small stones or clean cat litter to
represent rocks.

Once the texture is fully dry, I like to give

it a quick coat of AK Light Earth (the
paint, not the similarly named texture
paste). Perfect coverage isn’t necessary
here, as we’ll be covering most of this
later. If you like you can pick out the
rocks with a warm grey or similar.

For a little extra texture, I like to add a couple of Gamer’s Grass Tiny Tufts.
These are much smaller than standard tufts and work well to represent
small patches of grass and scrub.

Before we finish off the base, we’ll protect our miniature by hitting the
miniature with some matte varnish. I like to use AK Ultra Matte Varnish
through the airbrush.

Once the varnish is fully cured, we can give a dusty appearance to our
bases by stippling on some weathering pigment powders to the bases and
the boots. I like to use two to three different tones for a bit of variation. I
used AK Middle East Soil and AK Sienna Soil as my main tones, with a
sparing application of AK Dark Earth in a few places to add a little shading.

And with that, our US infantryman is ready to join his unit and ship out!