Commission: U.S. Marine

Apparently due to the popularity of my Woodland and Desert MARPAT tutorials, recently I was contacted to do a commission. The task was to paint two identical 28mm miniatures, one in Woodland MARPAT, one in Desert MARPAT.

The miniature was a kneeling marine in combat gear, "HFA137 Woody", by Hasslefree Miniatures.

I received the miniatures in the mail, and I expected them to be metal, as it certain looks metal in the image to the left. I was surprised to find out that they were resin instead! This is not normally a problem, but resin miniatures are more fragile, and unfortunately one of the miniatures was damaged in the mail. The butt of his pistol snapped off, as did the stock and barrel of his rifle.

I had to do some repair work, but in the end he came out OK.

The other miniature arrived intact. (assembly still required)

I got to work assembling and painting them. Back when I originally did the camouflage tutorials, I only primarily GW paints, but now that I've started painting Bolt Action miniatures, my paint range has expanded to include a large number of Vallejo paints. 

So this time around I had a much larger paint selection to choose from. For the desert pattern I used GW Terminatus Stone and GW Kommando Khaki for the largest patches, and 875 Beige Brown and GW Khemri Brown for the smaller ones.  

For the Woodland MARPAT figure, and the pack on the Desert MARPAT figure, I used the following colors: to represent Coyote Tan I went with 921 English Uniform. For the green, after some dithering I went with 890 Reflective Green. The black I used Chaos black, and for the smaller brownish spots I used GW Khemri Brown.

The rolled up sleeves on the Woodland MARPAT figure is 887 Brown Violet mixed with some 885 Pastel Green. The sleeves on the Desert MARPAT figure is GW Kommando Khaki highlighted with GW Terminatus Stone.

The equipment on both miniatures is the same, so I painted them using the same colors.

The rifle was painted black and highlighted with 862 Black Grey, while the magazine was drybrushed with 863 Gunmetal.

The pistol holster, gloves, and some pouches were painted 887 Brown Violet, while the strapping was painted 893 US Dark Green.

For my attempt at painting the Shemagh, I used 988 Khaki for the base color, and 822 German Camo. Black Brown for the pattern.

The boots, kneepads, vest I used 921 English Uniform.

The skin was painted GW Tanned Flesh highlighted with GW Tallarn Flesh.

I think based the miniatures and put on some static grass representing the environment. Mailed them off, and the customer was happy, so I'll mark this one as a success.