[Disclaimer: The Army Painter Historical British Paint Set used herein was provided by Army Painter.]
The Kingdom of Romania is one of those weird minor Axis powers; they contributed the third highest amount of troops on the Eastern Front and fought in most of the pivotal battles of Case Blue and later when assimilated by the Soviet Union took part in the push towards Germany. Despite that, they are much less represented on the tabletop or in public consciousness about the war, being instead overshadowed by Finland and the Kingdom of Hungary (which, hilariously, they would be very mad about).
Unlike their contemporaries in the Axis, Romanian had little in terms of armour or specialized weaponry, most of their tanks and vehicles were loans from Germany, Italy or outmoded stuff from France. They did have ambitious plans for their very own tank hunter, called the Mareșal, which never made it past the prototype stage thanks to Soviet intervention. What they did have was manpower, and plenty of it.
Today’s painting guide will give you a quick and relatively easy handful of recipes with which to paint the most important part of your Romanian army, the humble infantryman.
My personal recommendation, if you are planning to paint a Romanian army, is to buy yourself the Army Painter Historicals British Paint Set. The Battle Dress triad is the perfect shade of Khaki Brown for Romanian fatigues. As a disclaimer, every time I use one of the paints from that set I shorten ‘Army Painter Historical’ to ‘APH’.
Khaki Jacket
The Romanian uniform came in many shades of Khaki, but overall it was relatively close to the khaki brown used for British uniforms. This recipe is a lighter variant of that which can be used for jackets, pants, winter coats and even caps and headwear made from cloth (the Mountain Corps’ berets). The basecoat for this recipe is Army Painter Historical’s Dark Battle Dress which comes out much lighter than you would expect and feels more like a mid-tone than a shadow tone.
Shade all over that with a black wash. I personally use Army Painter’s Black Tone as it seeks out the recesses a bit more than shades like Nuln Oil; However it will have a much glossier finish than Nuln Oil, which I find mildly irritating when trying to properly see the model. Next we re-establish the Dark Battle Dress; If you are painting a long flowing coat you want to leave out larger areas of shaded color to create long flowing folds as seen on the example.
Our first proper highlight is a one-to-one mix of the Dark Battle Dress with Mid Battle Dress from the same set. Apply this more like a layered highlight than a straight up edge highlight to create a color transition towards the edges and raised surfaces. The last step is an edge highlight of pure Mid Battle Dress aimed towards corners.
Brown Jacket
You can sometimes see Romanian uniforms in a very deep shade of Khaki Brown, usually those have very little contrast, which can be rather tricky to translate onto a miniature. This should nonetheless make for a decent colour on your uniforms; it also works perfectly fine as the colour for your pants, either to compliment the Khaki uniform or create a cohesive look with a dark brown jacket.
You want to basecoat either part of the uniform or both with a mix of German Camo Black Brown and Army Painter historicals Dark Battle Dress – the ratio is one-to-one – but you can easily vary it to two-to-one in either direction for a deeper contrast or lighter shade of color. Next up is a wash of Nuln Oil (new formula); it is not too intense like Black Tone and has relatively matte properties which is very useful for our purposes.
Next up you want to layer all but the deepest recesses with your original mix (so if you changed the ratio, keep that). The first highlight you want to do more as a layer towards the edges; I prefer to glaze, but you can easily do a thicker highlight, just make sure its bigger on areas facing the sky. Lastly is an edge highlight of APH Dark Battle Dress mixed two-to-one with APH Mid Battle Dress, this will be light enough to contrast with the deep recesses, but not light enough to be a jarring jump in brightness.
Helmet
My recipe for painting Romanian Helmets is virtually identical to that for painting Italian helmets as they are decently similar in tone. The steps are the same as with any of my other helmet schemes; you mentally separate the helmet into two parts, the dome and the brim. Always leave the area where brim and dome meet as the darkest recess and work towards the edges of the brim or the top of the dome.
One thing to note about Romanian helmets is the monogram of King Carol II. Usually you can just paint that like the rest of the helmet, as the army was not concerned with fancying up their equipment. But if you don’t fancy painting up such small detail, you can simply shave it off. King Carol was rather unpopular and his monogram was gradually removed from helmets throughout the war, both by soldiers and the military itself.
Puttees
Last of the recipes is the simplest, the puttees. These are relatively straightforward, starting from a basecoat of Khaki (any will do, but I am using the Vallejo Model Color one). We shade that with Army Painter Brown Tone; once that is dried, water down some Vallejo German Camo Black Brown and apply that into the recesses between the bandages; this step ensures a clear definition of each bandage and deepens the shadow and implied dirt caught in them. The last step is re-applying the Khaki, you can either do one solid coat or try and glaze towards the bottom, applying a highlight to the bottom edge.
That wraps up the How To Paint Everything for the Romanians. Obviously painting your Romanian soldiers involves more steps than the four listed here, but those are all relatively universal steps (painting rifles, skin, leather, etc.). These four painting cards will help you get an idea on how to paint the parts of your models that are uniquely Romanian. I hope you found this guide helpful, thank you for reading!
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