Painting Late War Soviets

By Chris Hindmarsh
In this guide we will tackle Soviet In this guide you'll notice I mix a lot
soldiers, focusing on late WW2. of colours. Often this is simply
because I'm trying to achieve a
certain shade but I don't have the
For our Soviets, we’ll use translucent perfect paint on hand. Don't worry if
paints and glazes applied over a you don't have the same paints as
zenithal undercoat to provide a base me. There are usually many different
layer from which we can apply further ways to achieve the same colour, so
shading, highlighting, and other I encourage you to experiment with
details. With this technique we're what you already have to get a
hoping to get a sense of light falling on similar shade.
the miniature to create contrast that
will make our figures pop on the Our subjects for this guide will be
gaming table, without having to spend some 3D-printed Soviets from RKX
hours and hours on every model. Miniatures.

To represent the varied and

inconsistent nature of Soviet uniforms, In this guide I will abbreviate the
we’ll introduce a few different options following miniature paint brands:
for colour mixes that can be used ●
AP = The Army Painter
throughout the army. ●
AK = AK Interactive Acrylics

1
Priming and Zenithal Undercoating
The first step after cleaning your
miniature is to prime it. I use a dark
yellowish-brown primer through the
airbrush, but a rattle can will work just
as well.

We’ll follow that up with a zenithal

highlight of white acrylic ink (I use
Liquitex Titanium White) through
the airbrush. Alternatively, for a
hardier paint surface, we can
substitute the white ink with a lacquer
based paint such as Tamiya XF-2
Flat White heavily thinned with
lacquer thinner.

I like to use either ink or lacquer

based paints for this step because
they tend to give smooth transitions.
Standard white acrylic paint, on the
other hand, often speckles a lot when
going through the airbrush.

This zenithal highlight is delivered

mostly from above the model, aiming
to simulate the way sunlight falls on
the upper surfaces of the model and
leaves shadows in other areas. We’ll
take our time with this, building up
the paint layer slowly, so the surfaces
that would reflect the most sunlight
are more intensely white.

2
 Basecoating the Kit
Now that we have our light volumes sketched in, it's time to add some colour.
For most of the basecoats we’ll use translucent paints to allow some of our light
sketch to show through. I mostly use AP Speedpaints, but feel free to
experiment with other brands like Citadel Contrast and Vallejo Xpress Paints.

For the rifle furniture and anything wooden we’ll

use AP Hardened Leather Speedpaint.

For the the leather belt, ammo pouches, and

any other leather details we’ll use a 1:1 mix of
AP Hardened Leather and Burnished Red
Speedpaints.

Helmets can be painted with a 2:1 mix of AP

Desolate Brown and AP Brownish Decay
Speedpaints. If necessary, this mixture can be
thinned with Speedpaint medium and a second
layer applied to darken and enrich the colour.

Sacks and canteen covers can be painted in a

roughly 2:1 mix of AP Pallid Bone and AP
Dark Wood Speedpaints. This can also be
applied to some straps of your choosing. Other
straps could be painted with neat AP Pallid
Bone.

If your figure is wearing a greatcoat or has a

greatcoat bundled around their chest, we’ll
paint it with a mix of Speedpaints: 2 parts
Gravelord Grey, 1 part Brownish Decay, 1
part Dark Wood.

The metallic parts of the rifle can be filled in

with your preferred dark metal colour. I like to
use Vallejo Metal Colour Dark Aluminium.

This same silver metallic colour can also be

used to basecoat any gold or brass details
such as the star on the cap or the belt buckle,
before applying a thin coat of AP Sand Golem
Speedpaint to tint them a brownish yellow.

3
 Basecoating the Uniform
Now that we’ve basecoated most of the details of the kit, let’s start on the
uniform itself. Soviet uniforms varied wildly in colour from a pale brown to a dark
olive green, so we can introduce some variation into our own uniforms to
represent this. Here are a few different mixes we can use throughout our army.

For a green tone, try a mix of:

●
3 parts Brownish Decay Speedpaint
●
1 part Dark Wood Speedpaint
●
1 part Camo Cloak Speedpaint
●
2 parts Speedpaint Medium

For a lighter yellowish-green, try:

●
2 parts Pallid Bone Speedpaint
●
1 part Sand Golem Speedpaint
●
1 part Brownish Decay Speedpaint
●
1 part Desolate Brown Speedpaint
●
2 parts Speedpaint Medium

For a faded tan, try:

●
1 part Brownish Decay Speedpaint
●
1 part Pallid Bone Speedpaint

By experimenting with the ratios of these

examples we can achieve even more variation.
For example, adding more Sand Golem will
shift the colour towards a more yellow hue,
while adding Camo Cloak or Desolate Brown
will make it more green.

After we’ve applied our initial layers, we can

thin our mixes a little using more Speedpaint
Medium and selectively apply a second coat to
areas where we want to emphasise the
shadows, such as under the arms or the lower
sides of folds.

4
Once our uniform is basecoated, we can finish
off the last few things.

For the boots and any black leather bits we’ll

use a mix of equal parts Grim Black and
Gravelord Grey Speedpaints. This can also
be applied over any silver metallics to darken
and shade them. Once the first coat is dry, we
can come back and selectively add a second
layer to areas where we want to deepen the
shadows on these metallic and black leather
objects.

Shading
We can now glaze on a mix of AP Grim Black
Speedpaint and Gravelord Grey Speedpaint
thinned with an equal amount of Speedpaint
medium in certain areas to create some
deeper shadows, using our original light sketch
as a guide, for example where the arms meet
the torso. This mix can also be used to
blackline details such as seams and pocket
flaps.

5
 Highlighting
To make our soldier pop, we’ll start by highlighting the uniform. The exact colour
we use will depend on the basecoat variation we’ve chosen, but the principles
remain the same.
We’ll keep our paint thinned with water, using
some glaze medium (or even Speedpaint
Medium) if that helps us control the paint a little
easier. We’ll concentrate our highlight toward
the upper surfaces and the edges of creases,
using our original zenithal light sketch as a
guide.

When applying the paint to the model, we’ll

draw the brush toward the point where we want
the highlight to be strongest. This way we’re
pulling the pigment toward that highest point,
depositing the most pigment where we remove
our brush from the model.

To highlight most of our uniform variations we’ll

use AK Ochre as the base of our mixture,
lightening it with AK Ice Yellow as needed. For
highlighting the greener variations, we can add
a little AK Light Green into the mixture, or if we
want a more faded, less saturated colour for
those green uniform items we can add some
AK Grey Green.

After our first pass, we can add more AK Ice

Yellow to the mixture and apply additional
highlighting to the highest points.

The boots can be highlighted with a mix of AK

Rubber Black and AK Grey Green.

The rifle furniture is highlighted with AK Ochre.

The leather belt and ammo pouches are

highlighted with a mix of AK Orange Tan and
AK Waffen Red Brown.

The metallic parts of the rifle can be highlighted

with the original metal colour, in this case
Vallejo Metal Colour Dark Aluminium.
6
 Painting Skin
Let’s spend a little more time on the face since
the viewer’s eye will naturally be drawn to it.

We’ll start by blocking in the face and any other

skin with a couple of thin coats of a warm off-
white such as AK Light Flesh.

Next we’ll apply a thin flesh-coloured transparent

paint. I use AP Peachy Flesh Speedpaint
thinned with Speedpaint Medium.

We will then take some Citadel Carrouburg

Crimson wash thinned 1:1 with water or
Speedpaint medium and apply it to areas of the
face that we would expect to be shadowed or
pinker, such as the eye sockets, the hollows of
the cheeks, the nose, and the lower lip. A couple
of layers can be applied if needed to build up the
colour.

We can then mix up a light flesh colour and

apply it as a highlight to the cheekbones, chin,
the tip of the nose, and anywhere else the light
would catch. For this colour I use a mix of AK
Light Flesh and AP Elven Flesh.

To create some stubble, we can use Citadel

Gryphcharger Grey Contrast thinned 1:1 with
water or medium and apply it around the jaw.

A final glaze of Citadel Reikland Fleshshade

can then be applied across the face to give it
some more warmth.

7
 Finishing Touches
To base my Soviets I have used some 3D-printable urban bases
from RKX Miniatures. They were basecoated with a couple of
different greys. When that basecoat was fully cured, ivory tile grout
was brushed into the grout lines between the bricks and dampened
with water sprayed gently through the airbrush to activate and set
the grout. Note that you should be wearing a respirator when
dealing with grout in its powder form, as you really don’t want to be
breathing that stuff in!

When the grout is solid, I glued on some scale bricks and other
debris to give that ruined city feel.
To protect our hard work, we can hit the miniature with some
varnish. I like to use AK Ultra Matte Varnish through the airbrush.
Any last weathering can then be performed. For my Soviets I have
sparingly applied some weathering pigment powders to the bases
and the boots to give a dusty appearance.
And with that, our Soviet soldier is ready to join his comrades and
battle through the streets of Berlin!