How to Paint Bolt Action

Historical painting is a different job from a Warhammer faction, and the difference is that the answer already exists. Nobody invents German field grey or US olive drab; they are documented colours with documented variation by year, factory and theatre. The interesting questions move from "what colour should this be" to "which pot is closest to it", "how much does it fade in the sun", and "how filthy should this platoon look".

The second difference is scale. Bolt Action is 1:56 - 28mm - and almost every camouflage reference you will find online is painted at 1:35 or bigger, where the pattern is drawn with an airbrush and the mottling is fine. At our scale that reads as mud. Patterns have to be exaggerated and simplified, colours lifted a shade or two against the reference to survive the size, and edges kept harder than the real thing.

The upside is that a platoon is six or seven colours from end to end. One uniform tone, one webbing tone, boots, flesh, weapon wood, gunmetal, and the base - that is an army, and it is why a Bolt Action force gets finished when a 40,000 one stalls. Each nation guide below gives those colours by name across Citadel, Vallejo, Army Painter and more, and the generator will price every one of them.