Spähpanzer 2 Luchs – Camouflage painting

Versione italiana

This camouflage scheme is the standard three-colors one (green, brown and black) used on NATO vehicles since the early 1980s. The edges of the color bands on the actual vehicles are soft, but in scale they appear almost hard.

For the painting I used Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints, diluted 50% with a mix of equal parts of distilled water and alcohol-based glass cleaner. Here are the colors I used:

• Green: 40% 70.890 Reflective Green, 40% 70.889 U.S. Olive Drab, 20% 70.976 Buff.
• Brown: 70.872 Chocolate Brown.
• Black: 66% 70.950 Black, 33% 70.872 Chocolate Brown.

Base

First I painted the zones of the camo with the airbrush, trying to follow the scheme shown on the instruction sheet.

Then I lined the contours with a fine paintbrush and thinned paint.

Shades

After that, I faded the center of the color zones with the airbrush. I used Chocolate Brown for the black and Buff for the green and the brown. I also removed the lateral light projector, being it not present in the version A2 which I want to depict.

Details

I painted the details with the paintbrush. The wooden handles of the tools are in Buff (I will "wash" them later with Van Dyck Brown oil paint), their metal parts in black (and I will eventually dry-brush them with a soft pencil for a more realistic effect), and the same goes for the machine gun.

The orange of the lights is a mix of two parts of 70.953 Flat Yellow and one part of 70.957 Flat Red, whereas the colors of the camouflage nets are 70.967 Olive Green, Chocolate Brown and a mix of three parts of Buff and one of Chocolate Brown.

I colored the inside of the headlights in silver during the assembling phase and then I sealed them with their clear cover, which I eventually protected with a masking liquid.

Decals

The decals (very kindly given to me by Dario —whom I thank— because those provided with the kit were not complete) belong to a vehicle of the 3. Kompanie, PanzeraufklärungsBtl. 7 ("3^rd company, 7^th armored reconnaissance battalion"), based in Augustdorf in 1989.