Tutorial: How to Paint 20mm WW2 US Infantry

Way back last August, I did a tutorial on painting WW2 US infantry. For whatever reason, lately it's been recieving a lot of traffic, so I decided to check it out again.

Wow.

Was my photography really that bad? Apparently it was done before I discovered GIMP (Safe for work, I promise), because most of the photos are brown.

So, in the interests of quality, I've redone it. Here it is - the painting 20mm WW2 US Infantry to a tabletop standard quickly and easily tutorial, mark II.

Note that this is for the M1941 uniform, which was issued until 1943, when it was replaced by (surprisingly) the M1943. The majority of the GIs wore the M1941 for the Normandy campaign, excepting the green units, and replaced them with the M1943 when they refitted.

Paints used:


Black primer/undercoat (any brand, it shouldn't matter)
Revell Aqua NATO-Olive
Revell Aqua Flesh
Revell Aqua Brown
Revell Aqua Grey
GW Khemri Brown
GW Catachan Green
GW Dark Flesh
GW Boltgun Metal
GW Bleached Bone

These are the paints I used, feel free to substitute others as availability/preference dictates.

Step by Step

Step 1: Blu-tack your model to some kind of painting base - I use dice, and prime black.

Step 2: Basecoat everything. Use Dark Flesh for the skin and boots, Brown for the trousers and rifle/submachine gun stock, NATO-Olive for the Jacket, Boltgun Metal for the gunmetal and belt buckle, Catachan Green for the helmet and (in this case) grenades, and a 50/50 mixture of Catachan Green and Grey for the webbing. Make sure to leave thin black lines around the different colours (AKA 'Blacklining') and leave black in the deepest shadows.

Step 3: Highlights. Hihglight the skin with Fesh, leaving Dark Flesh showing in the shadows. Highlight the jacket by mixing some Bleached Bone into the Nato-Olive, highlight the trousers with Khemri Brown, and highlight the webbing by adding Bleached Bone into the Grey/Green mixture from earlier. Drybrush the helmet with a mixture of Catchan Green and Bleached Bone.

At this point the painting of the miniature is done. I didn't highlight the boots or gun because in all honesty, they don't need it. This is a tabletop quality miniature after all.

Step 4: Base to taste. I've used modelling sand, painted brown and drybrushed with a lighter brown, then glued static grass on. As normal, the base has been edged in black. All that's left to do is varnish them to protect the paintwork.

And that's that. i would estimate that painting this guy took no more than 10 minutes, including basing, so it's a good way to get boots on the table. It doesn't stand up to close inspection, but it looks good at normal size.

Normal size. See?