Painting Olive Drab – Warlord Games M8 Medium Assault Walker

Painting olive drab probably seems like a rather…. drab subject. It’s just an olive green, right. You paint it, You move on. What’s the big deal?

But there really is more to it than that. Olive drab (whatever your definition of it is!) usually presents itself as a dark, desaturated green. Base painting a model with just that will mean that later on, you’ll likely struggle to get details to show, and for there to be differentiation in the various details and volumes on the model.

Painting Olive Drab – The Challenges

So the trick is to do some things that enhance the olive drab base color, give it a bit of a faced look, still “read” as olive drab to the eye, and hold up to later weathering. Thus the task is to use lighter and lighter versions of olive drab. Finding a good modulation set will help with this, but the same colors can be mixed. having some yellow, beige, and white can help alter the base color to keep it looking suitably “olive”. Sticking to the warmer colors also helps retain the green look, and avoids the pea green look.