Another in ICM’s range of paint sets, this time for use with any WWII British armoured vehicles.

The set contains the following 12ml paint pots from their range of generic colours; I have listed what I believe to be their intended uses:

• 1041 Buff – Light Stone/Portland Stone
• 1027 Gun Metal Metallic – tracks
• 1054 Chocolate – possibly SCC.2 Brown, but this paint is too dark
• 1059 Green Ochre – Middle Stone/Dark Stone
• 1069 Extra Dark Green – Deep Bronze Green
• 1071 Camouflage Green – SCC. 15 Olive Drab or Khaki Green No.3

The back of the box has a couple of drawings showing suggested uses for each color. The Camo pattern on the Churchill is like nothing I have seen before on a British tank, though it’s quite possible it was a special scheme in Italy.

British armor paint schemes varied during the War based on time period, theater and needs. The MAFVA website has an excellent article by British armor guru Mike Starmer for those wishing to go into depth. The basic colors used were Deep Bronze Green, Khaki Green No.3, Dark Green No.5, SCC.22 Khaki Brown, SCC.15 Olive Drab, Light/Portland Stone and SCC.5 Light Mud.

As to the accuracy of the paints, it is difficult to compare to contemporary photos, whether color or not, as film emulsions differed back in the day; of course, paints varied from batch to batch, and in the field they do fade and stain easily with use, so to my mind there’s no need to worry too much about exact shades and for those who do require greater accuracy, these paints can be easily mixed with other colors from the range. As with any other paint range, of course!

ICM’s standard dumpy little pots have deep lids with rims to prevent the paint drying in the screw-top thread, something I appreciate! The paint is very thick which is good for brush-painting, but they will need to be thinned for airbrush use, using distilled water or acrylic thinners. They dry with a very flat matt finish. For brush painting, two coats are required for even coverage, but the paint dries quickly and overcoating the same day is possible. The exception is the Gun Metal, which is awful for brush painting – it might be good thinned and sprayed, but I haven’t tried it.

These are good little paints, smaller and less expensive than other brands which is ideal if you only require paints for a specific project, and a set means you have just about all you might need in one handy pack, although I would have preferred black to the gun metal in this case, the gun metal paint being quite bad for brush-painting. My thanks for the review sample to the hard-working folks at ICM, who still manage to turn out lots of nice product, despite being in the middle of a war zone.