The Denison Smock - WG Red Devils Session 4

I did a little research before diving into painting the Denison smock on the Red Devils. What I have gleaned is there really isn't a pattern to the smock as such. It has been stated that the Mk 2 smocks were made from a printed cloth pattern but historians now think this is incorrect. Apparently no one has been able to find a pattern that would indicate that it was printed. Basically the smock has a base color and the green and brown were literally painted on with house brushes in a random manner. Hence why there are what appear to be brush strokes, because there are brush strokes.

From a painting standpoint this is good news. I sat down and decided that the best way to replicate the smock would be just to apply paint in somewhat straight patterns that may or may not intersect each other. It appears that there are only three colors used with a fourth appearing because of the overlap of greens and browns. Even the greens and browns seemed to different, probably based on where the smock was made.

I went with an VM Iraqi Sand (819/124) as the basecoat. As I mentioned before this feels to light to me. I tried out a little VM Khaki Grey (880/113) which I think is probably to dark. Probably a mix of these colors would be better. I'll try that out on the next group I work on.

To give them a little variation I choose three VM greens to work with; US Dark Green (893/095), Reflective Green (890/090) and German Extra Dark Green (896/099). I applied these randomly to the 13 minis. US Dark Green and Reflective Green were used the most with the German Extra Dark Green only going on three.

I did the same with the browns again working with three VM colors; Flat Brown (984/140), Mahogany Brown (846/139) and German Camo Medium Brown (826/145). Again I applied these randomly to the 13 minis. I may drop the German Camo Medium Brown from the next batch it just doesn't have enough red in it.

I used VM English Uniform (921/141) on the pants, highlighted up with Green Brown (879/114). I put a basecoat of Russian Uniform (924/094) on all the webbing and equipment. I actually managed to go in an line a couple of the minis but I ran out of energy to get farther than that today.

When I talk about Vallejo Model color I have found that there two numbers that you really need. The first three digits are the last three numbers from the actual Vallejo catalog (this number is usually five digits but the last three will get you what you need) and the next thee numbers are its actual location in the Vallejo Model Color Paint rack. Knowing the location in the rack really makes it quick to find the colors at the store.

So Sunday painting got me to this point:

Playing around with the colors. I like the Reflective Green the best but I'm going to use all of them. The German Camo Brown I'm not to fond of.

The Greens

The Browns

The German Green

The Reflective Green

US Dark Green

With Mahogany Brown

Flat Brown on These

The German Camo Brown

At this point they are looking way to light. I'm going to continue before I go back and adjust colors. There is a lot of equipment that has received the camo colors which makes the light areas look larger than they really are.

End of the day. Smocks are essentially done, pants are done, webbing and equipment has been base coated with Russian Uniform

Bren gun team

Vickers MMG and crew