The blue version is purely fictitious, it was a mistake made interpreting black and white photos for a museum piece, some museum tanks have been painted in blue, but blue was never used in the field, it was always Portland stone, Silver grey and Slate grey, all of which are available as pre-mixed colours from various paint manufacturers, personally I quite like life colour who sell those as part of a set!
The closest I could find to the origin was mention of the stone grey supposedly fading to a blueish tint in the sun, and apparently an Airfix model kit ended up with a bright blue caunter scheme as a result. Sounds like orc mischief to me! 😂
In practice,, the Portland Stone could have been Middle Stone, which would give a more yellow finish, and the Slate Grey could have been Khaki Green No3, the standard European scheme colour at the time. It would have depended how the vehicle was painted when it arrived at the service depot. Middle Stone vehicles from elsewhere in theatre could have just had the two disruptive colours added, while vehicles arriving direct from the UK could have kept the European colour as the darker disruptive colour. Sledge is correct that each vehicle had a specific pattern to paint them, but note that towed guns were not to be painted in Caunter, and just left in the base colour. ( Source, the Caunter Scheme by Mike Starmer, OOP)
I use some putty for masking my modell, especially when it's a rough surface or difficult camouflage... THX YOU for showing us this handpainted tutorial. Unfortunately it everyone has a airbrush setup... THANKS AGAIN!
This was great! My favorite tank and camouflage scheme. I have done a 1/76 Matilda in the Caunter scheme using Mike Starmer's book and it is very helpful. It does take patience to do this scheme but I too found it was easier without the masking tape. Thanks for sharing this.
There was no blue. Many original paint guides have been found. One theory is that when the light color faded to a bluish tan. Anyway, no blue shade was used.
this has been really educative for me... however, i don't have much access to specific paints, so i got to make my own mixes... which is a mess when you consider one got to remember or store their colors for use in different stages or other models...
The debate on Caunter is a nightmare. Best I've found from a lot of reading is the "blue" colour is a furphy. The official names were Portland Stone, Silver Grey and Slate. Issue is both the Grey and Slate are really shades of green. The Silver Grey apparently weathered to a slightly blueish grey colour. You'll know a lot of grey colours actually have a fair amount of blue tones in them. Regardless you've got it right and the full on blue on the famous Matilda II at Bovington Tank Museum in England is, in fact, wrong.
Yeah, there's worlds of difference between 'fades a bit blue' and... is literally just painted blue. 😅 Of course, you try saying that in front of anyone who'll hammer on Google and go, "But *look*!" The most I could find on the origin of the full-on Blue Caunter dates to an illustration from some point in the 60s, but pinning that down is even more challenging.
@@SonicSledgehammerStudio I wonder if anyone has first hand evidence from a tanker? They'd probably all be passed away by now but maybe, just maybe, we've got some verbatim evidence out there. You'd think the British army colour swatches would be enough but apparently not. Perhaps the most bizzare thing is why would you paint a tank sand, blue and green for camp in the desert? Are they sitting in an oasis? Super paint job by the way!
For my saunter through Caunter I followed the FoW guide for Vallejo paints. They used stone grey for Portland Stone and green grey for silver grey (all painted free hand). Only problem is it looks a bit dark in scale; this looks much better to me. Excellent work!
Looks great! As for the mysterious "blue" scheme? My understanding is that it was the regular Caunter scheme, but the silvery-grey paint faded to blue over time; meaning that wasn't a variation of the scheme, but simply it after significant wear.
Can also use blu-tac, plasticine or play-doh, roll it out thin, cut lines with ruler and blade, lay on surface and gently push down to seal edges over details.
@@richardcowling7381 I have used blu-tac or press stick as it is known locally in the past, but I have found that it some times lifts paint right down to the plastic when removing the blu-tac, which is why I moved to the more expensive masking putty.
![Hand-Painting Caunter Camo for Early War British Vehicles [How I Paint Things]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
