The best way to paint camouflage on your Imperial Guardsmen is to keep the pattern simple and avoid going into too much detail. Because you're painting on quite a small area, creating camouflage patterns that are true to life can make your models lose their shape. The trick is to simplify a pattern to its most basic forms. This way, you can create a design that is very effective without having to spend too much time painting it.

Left: This example shows that by adding clusters of dots to a flat colour background, you can easily create a camouflage scheme that's quick to paint.

The actual patterns on the uniforms do not have to be highlighted individually. Doing so actually makes them look blurred and less effective. If you want to give the surface some depth, give the background colour one or two layers of highlights and paint the pattern on top of them.

Right: Notice how on this example the pattern is broken up where there are any seams in the cloth. This gives the pattern a very realistic look, which emulates camouflage clothing in existence today. This is a nice touch to add to your model and brings it to life.

Although you can paint camouflage over the whole model, combining single colours with camouflage gives your model an interesting edge. You can paint the fatigues in camouflage and the flak armour in a single colour or vice versa. Such a method is a good way of using camouflage sparingly but still getting all the visual benefits from it. Any combination of flat colours and camouflage schemes is worth experimenting with, and the possibilities are virtually endless.

When choosing the colours to paint your model, try to pick bold, contrasting colours that look good in combination with each other. If you choose colours that are too close together in tone and colour, your camouflage pattern will quickly turn into a blur. Pick one dark colour, one mid-tone colour, and one light colour for your camouflage scheme. This way, you can make sure that the chosen colours will be visible, even from a distance.

Right: These Guardsmen are perfect examples of bold camouflage schemes. The light and dark contrast in the patterns gives them a real edge.

Note: Some patterns look better in certain environments than others, but what makes your camouflage scheme "belong" to an environment is the colour choice.

By following some basic rules, you can easily create a camouflage scheme that looks good and is easy to paint. Your local library and the internet are great places to find examples.

For additional tips on how to paint camouflage for major battle environments, select one of the terrain styles below: