Colours Of War: How To Paint World War II and World War III Models (WWIIWWIII)

Besides the painting recommendations, a lot of historical background information.

I was expecting a soft cover and so pleasantly surprised to receive a beautiful, excellent quality hardbound full color book which I will enjoy keeping.

Before I get to the review, I should point out that this is not intended to be an historical reference. It is a book for players of tabletop wargames (specifically Flames of W.), so that they can paint their armies reasonably accurately and consistently, without obsessing over the finest details.(I have avoided the use of certain words in my reviews as I have found that they upset the bot which scans them, resulting in the review being rejected, and I get a warning. With a product like this, it's hard to avoid certain words, but hopefully you can still figure out what I mean.)This book uses colour reference numbers relating to the official FoW range of paints, which are currently manufactured by Vallejo, and use the same numbering system as the rest of Vallejo's paints. They are available in convenient nationality-specific sets, most of which I own and will review separately. You can also buy the paints individually. Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide equivalents for different paint manufacturers, nor does it reference Flames of W.'s older 'Quartermasters' paints. A conversion table is available on the FoW website, if you dig about a bit.It's worth noting that the names of the colours are fairly arbitrary, and you occasionally find strange anomalies - for example the colour suggested for British tanks (924) is called 'R*ssian uniform'. Don't worry about this - it's the right colour, it's coincidentally also the colour of the R*ssian uniforms.The book starts with a guide to assembling your models, and a basic technique guide for those new to painting. This is very well done, and puts a lot of emphasis on shading and highlighting techniques, which are essential on models as small as the FoW range.There's then a section on basing, then the book becomes increasingly detailed, going into weathering techniques and application of decals.All of this is extremely well-done, with clear photographs throughout. Although I'm a very experienced painter of fantasy miniatures, these small-scale vehicles and realistic paint schemes are new to me, and there is plenty of useful stuff in here.With the painting techniques section finished, the book then turns to individual nations, and the camouflage schemes used by them. The first part references 1939-45, and the second part a hypothetical future / modern scenario.Each nation is given its own chapter, which also includes winter and desert camouflages where appropriate. It outlines the organisation of an armoured division, unit codes, where to apply decals and which ones to use on which vehicles, and a selection of historical examples. Naturally, it also shows which colours to use, both for the basecoat and for any shading and highlighting. This applies to vehicles and to uniforms - if anything, there is even more detail given over to the uniforms than there is to the tanks.For someone getting into the FoW hobby, this is an excellent book. The models are small, so it's not necessary or even possible to go to extremes of accuracy. More to the point, they are 'gaming tokens', intended for use in a tabletop game. With this book, you will be able to paint your models to a standard which will satisfy the vast majority of gamers, and also achieve a good level of historical accuracy. Better still, if you are part of a group or club, you should all be able to produce models which cosmetically match if you follow this book.

Clear and concise and packed with information. Very happy with the purchase.

Un libro imprescindible para las miniaturas

RAS