Painting M81 Woodland Tutorial

Here is my latest camouflage painting tutorial, and this time we go back to a classic, M81 Woodland Camouflage.  This camouflage was introduced to the US military in, you guessed it, 1981.  Since then it has become one of the most common camouflage patterns in the world. 

Painting ABU Tutorial

Here is a step by step guide to paint the United States Air Force's Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) camouflage pattern.

I'm not in the USAF, but from what I understand, it's not exactly the most popular uniform with airmen.  The tiger-stripe pattern has been criticized for being ineffective in tactical environments - complaints similar to those about the US Army's Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP).  The Warhammer 40,000 universe, however, has many more types of environment than Terra does.  The ABU tiger-stripe camouflage still looks cool.  So somewhere in the vast but grim darkness of the far future, surely there is a place for the ABU.

That Elusive Coyote

A while back I put up a tutorial on how to paint the USMC Woodland MARPAT camouflage.  Here is the image of a swatch I made--my attempt at matching the colors using mostly GW paints:


The colors are Chaos Black, Khemri Brown, Snakebite Leather, and the green is an odd blend of Vallejo's Gunship Green mixed with a few GW colors.  It was an imperfect solution at best.  Clearly the weakest match in the mix is the Snakebite Leather masquerading as Coyote 476 (FS20150), which in a way has become the USMC's signature color.  In addition to the color being prominent in the MARPAT pattern itself, it also is the color of their boots and body armor.

Painting MultiCam Tutorial

Following up on my tutorials for ACUPAT, MARPAT, and Desert MARPAT, this is my fourth camouflage tutorial, focusing on Crye Precision's popular "MultiCam".

Painting ACUPAT Tutorial

As with the woodland MARPAT and the desert MARPAT, I made a swatch and compared it to a sample of the real thing in an attempt to match the colors. In this case, the colors match pretty well. The colors are Codex Grey, Fortress Grey, and Dheneb Stone.


Before I jump right into the model itself, I thought I'd go over trying to figure out how to paint a digital pattern. The simple fact is, at the scale of these models, there's no way you'll be able to match the real pattern--the pattern itself is too small and complex. The best you can do is approximate it, with the knowledge that your brush is just too big and clumsy to get the real thing down pat.

I played around with Photoshop to analyze the pattern. On the left is a photo of an ACU, and to the right is the same photo, but blurred. The blurring simplifies the image into more managable shapes.
Next I used the brush tool to paint over the dark grey areas. Due to the sheer coarseness of the brush, you lose a lot of detail, but I'm only worried about getting the basic regions of color here.
Next I used the lighter shade of grey, and painted over the areas where that color seemed to be most prominent.
Looking closely at the picture, it's clear that I missed a few spots, so I went back and touched it up a little, filling in some more areas with the two greys.
Finally, I replaced the background of the painted image with the sand color. This solidifies the image and you can see its constituent shapes.
The end result is clear: The pattern does not consist of stripes of different colors, but it's not just irregular blobs either. There are sections of the dark grey and the sand that have the appearance of stripes, but they are definitely irregular in thickness, and they are broken up by the light gray, which is very randomly distributed.

So how does one paint this? I would suggest starting off by painting irregular stripes, and specifically avoiding keeping them of uniform thickness. In fact you should actively attempt to keep the thickness random. Then paint on random dabs of the light grey color. Once this is done, hold the model at a distance and examine it--if it looks like there's too much sand, or too much dark grey, you can touch it up by randomly applying dabs of the deficient color. Do that enough times and the digital pattern will start to emerge.

Stage 1: Ok, so here I go painting my actual model. Step one was to basecoat the model. I gave the skin a coat of Tallarn Flesh, the cloth Dheneb Stone, the armor and boots Khemri Brown, the gun Chaos Black, and the gloves and accoutrements Orkhide Shade. I know what you're thinking, "Why Dheneb Stone for the basecoat?" The ACUs are mainly grey, not beige... Well, in the real ACU the sand color really does make up a significant amount of the pattern. Practically speaking, the Dheneb Stone is a foundation paint, and therefore covers the black basecoast very well--better even than Codex Grey. If I did Codex Grey, I'd probably have to do two coats to cover it the black uniformly.
Stage 2: I painted the armor and boots etc., with Desert Yellow. I agonized about what color to use for a long time. When the ACU was first fielded in the real world, the body armor of troops varied widely in colors because of what was available at the time. This included old woodland pattern, olive drab, coyote tan, to foliage green (the darker grey in the ACU pattern itself). Nowadays, body armor in the ACU pattern itself seems to be the most common. This might look cool, but the entire model would end up looking like the pattern, blending in with himself and obscuring the detail, which would detract from the appearance of the model. This picture is an example:

Seeing as I'm painting up many of my troops in the woodland MARPAT camouflage, and they are issued Coyote Tan body armor, I decided that this guy would have been issued the same thing. At this stage I also picked out a few spots in Chaos Black, and painted the scope and laser designator with Regal Blue and Mechrite Red respectively. I also did a very heavy drybrush of Catachan Green over the Orkhide Shade areas.
Stage 3: Next up was starting on the camouflage pattern itself. I painted Codex Grey over the cloth in an irregular stripe pattern, dabbing it on in places to make the stripes irregular in shape and thickness. I deliberately gave the Codex Grey a lot of coverage, so as to tone down the dominance of the Dheneb Stone.
Stage 4: This next stage was very simple--I painted in the eyes, then gave the face and all the Desert Tan areas a wash of Devlan Mud to shade them. The wash on the armor also darkens the shade a bit to make it match the color of Coyote Tan a bit better. I also gave the face another wash, this time of Ogryn Flesh.
Stage 5: Now I dabbed in Fortress Grey into the camouflage pattern, randomly and comparatively sparingly. Anyplace on the model that looked like the Codex Grey was over-dominating the Dheneb Stone or vice versa got a dab of Fortress Grey. Once that was done, I did a once over and touched up any places I thought I missed with Codex Grey and Fortress Grey. At this stage I higlighted the face with Tallarn Flesh, the armor and boots with Desert Tan, and the green areas with a 50/50 mix of Catachan Green and Knarloc Green.
Stage 6:Seeing as this guy is a sniper, I did some web-surfing to look at some sniper rifles to look for other paintjobs than simple black, and found some cool pictures of the M110.While I didn't model my sniper rifle on this design, I decided to paint it similarly. I painted the casing with Khemri Brown and highlighted it with a 50/50 mix of Khemri Brown and Kommando Khaki. I painted the imperial insignia on the gun with Desert Yellow and gave it a wash of Devlan Mud. I painted the scope Charadon Granite, and hightlighted various black bits on the gun with Charadon Granite as well. At this stage I also finished up painting the scope and laser designator, and highlighted the various black bits of the model with Adeptus Battlegrey.
Finally, for fun I also decided to give this guy some Nomex Aviator Gloves, just like the guy in this picture.Nomex Aviator Gloves are in pretty common use, based on various photos I've seen of troops in the field. They are basically green on the back of fingers/hand, with grey on the palm, inside of the fingers, and a stripe that runs between the fingers and thumb down to the wrist.

With that, this guy is good to go...

Painting Desert MARPAT Tutorial

Here's a step by step guide on how I painted up my desert camouflaged Imperial Guardsmen.

With this pattern I am trying to match up the USMC's desert digital camouflage pattern, called Desert MARPAT. I used a piece of posterboard to make a swatch, but I didn't have a real sample of the camouflage to compare it to, so the best I can do is guess on the colors. Here is a swatch I made superimposed over a digital image of the camouflage.

As you can see the match isn't perfect, but for my purposes it'll do. There may be differences in the colors due to the lighting when the digital image was taken as well, so I'll use that as an excuse for it not being perfect. The base color I used is Bleached Bone, followed by Kommando Khaki, and then smaller areas of Khemri Brown and Graveyard Earth.

Stage 1: I primed the model black, and then painted a basecoat of Khemri Brown over the armor and cloth. Desert Yellow on the base, Tallarn Flesh for the skin, Regal Blue for the glasses, and Chaos Black for the meltagun.
Stage 2: Desert Yellow on the armor and boots, Bleached Bone on the cloth, and Tin Bitz on the business end of the meltagun.
Stage 3: The difference here is subtle--I applied a wash of Devlan Mud on the armor and boots to tone down the color. The USMC uses a color called "Coyote Tan" for much of their gear. Desert Yellow is close, but too bright to match right, so toning it down with a dark brown wash brings the color more into line. I also used the wash on the face to provide shading.
Stage 4: Now onto the camouflage pattern. I painted on irregular blotches of Kommando Khaki on the cloth. I tried to get a large proportion of the cloth, so rather than it looking like Bleached Bone with splotches of Kommando Khaki on top, I wanted it to look more like a 50/50 mix, with it being difficult to tell which color is dominant. I also lightly drybrushed some Brazen Brass on the end of the meltagun.
Stage 5: I next put little dabs of Khemri Brown and Graveyard Earth randomly over the camouflage pattern. These colors are less used than the others in the pattern, so I used them both sparingly.
Stage 6: Finally I put highlights on the model. I put Desert Yellow on the edges of the armor plates & boots. The Meltagun got a drybrush of Adeptus Battlegrey, with some Chaos Black on the end of the barrel to make it look scorched. One power cable was painted Dark Angels Green with a highlight of Snot Green while the other was painted Regal Blue with a highlight of Enchanted Blue. Indicator lights on th power pack were painted Snot Green and Blood Red. For the glasses I used a mix of Regal Blue and Ice Blue to highlight the bottom edges, and then used dabs of Skull White to provide reflections, and put a coat of 'Ardcoat on them to make them shiny. And he's done!

Painting MARPAT Tutorial

Here's a step by step guide on how I'm painting up my new Imperial Guardsmen.

I was trying to match up the USMC's woodland digital camouflage pattern, but that turned out to be a tall order. I used a piece of posterboard to make a swatch, and compared it to the actual camouflage.
The black is easy--just use Chaos Black. The green was difficult, as Dark Angels Green wasn't quite it, so after lots of experimentation, I found that the best match was Vallejo Model Color Gunship Green. It had the right shade and level of saturation, but was just a little bit too light, so I darkened it with some Chaos Black. Then it looked a tad too desaturated, so I put in a few drops of Snot Green, but for some reason the Snot Green didn't mix too well with it. Regardless, the green is pretty close. The light/sand brown matches pretty well with Khemri Brown, so that worked out. Finally, the main color of them all, the brown... Now that was a pain. I made a separate swatch with nothing but shades of brown--Bestial Brown, Vermin Brown, Calthan Brown, Graveyard Earth, Snakebite Leather, Desert Yellow, Scorched Brown, etc., and none of them seemed to match right. The closest color (which is on the swatch) is Snakebite Leather, but as you can see it's not quite the right shade, and is way too bright. I messed around with mixing some colors, including Snakebite Leather and Graveyard Earth, and got pretty close, but it was a pain to do so, and since this was going to be a major color on the models, I didn't want to have to mix it up every time. So I settled on just using Snakebite Leather, and figured I'd tone down the shade with a wash of Devlan Mud.

So with the pattern down, it's on to a miniature:
After assembling and priming the model, I basecoated it with Chaos Black, Tallarn Flesh, and Calthan Brown.

I then painted the armor and boots with Desert Yellow, while I gave the cloth a coat of Snakebite Leather.

Then I gave the entire model a wash of Devlan Mud, to shade and tone down the colors.

Next started to paint the camouflage pattern. The MARPAT woodland pattern is dominated by the brown shade, followed closely by the green, with slightly less black, and a small contribution with the lighter shade of brown. As the real pattern is mainly dominated by the brown and green shades, I gave the green a significant amount of coverage.

For the next stage added the Chaos Black patches, and small dabs of Khemri Brown on the cloth to finish up the pattern.

Finally I highlighted the armor with Desert Yellow, highlighted the skin with Tallarn Flesh, painted in the eyes, and finished up the base. Voila! Now I just have to do all that a couple hundred more times! I plan on doing a similar guide for the ACUPAT in the near future.

Camouflage Evolution in the Arcadian Regiments

I freely admit that I've shamelessly copied US camouflage patterns for my Imperial Guard...
Left to right: US Woodland Camouflage, Desert MARPAT, ACUPAT, Woodland MARPAT. Or at least, facsimiles thereof.
When I first made an Imperial Guard army, I started out with the basic woodland camouflage, but with the main color being snot green to make the models less drab than they would be ordinarily--and in any case, Catachan Green wasn't yet available. When the US Armed Forces started switching to the various camouflage patterns, I liked the desert pattern used by the US Marines, so I did an entire platoon in those colors. For future guardsmen, I thought about doing a "newer" paint scheme, so I tried out the US Army's "universal" pattern on a couple miniatures. Most recently I did a test miniature of the US Marines digital woodland pattern, and I like the results a lot.

So I'm a little torn now. Do I paint up future guardsman in the universal camo pattern (second from right) or the digital woodland pattern (far right). What do you guys think? (See poll at right)

Stormtroopers in Multicam

As part of my continuing experiments in Imperial Guard camouflage schemes, I recently tried out a new scheme on one of my Stormtroopers.



Old Stormtrooper on the left, new "Multicam" version on the right.
The camouflage pattern is based on Crye Precision's "Multicam" pattern:

The pattern is basically made up of six colors: The first layer is Gretchin Green blending into Knarloc Green. Superimposed over that is a layer of Kommando Khaki blending into Khemri Brown. Finally the pattern is dotted with small marks of Charadon Granite and Bleached Bone.

Soldiers wearing Multicam while demonstrating Future Force Warrior project. Ft. Bliss, Texas.

I painted the body armor Kommando Khaki to provide some contrast to camouflage itself. All in all I'm rather pleased with the results. If I end up getting more Stormtroopers down the line, I may try out a squad with the body armor painted in the camouflage scheme as well.

The Art of Camouflage

The uniform of the 5th Arcadian Regiment, from an old White Dwarf magazine ¹. Note, they are not my 5th Arcadians--this is clearly a regiment from some other Arcadia in the Imperium.
The Warhammer 40,000 universe is one of contradictions. It is a universe of terrifying, obscenely lethal ranged weapons, but it is also a universe where most races wear bright battle dress and seem to prefer fighting in hand-to-hand combat rather than at range.

"The best gun in the galaxy won't help if your opponent is bashing your brains out with a rock!" ^{2 3 4}


The 40k Universe is a universe where you can be carrying an assault rifle (sorry, I mean lasgun), eyeing an enemy on foot, on open ground, way off in the distance, outside the range of your weapon, and yet somehow you just know that you will only be able to get off one, or if you're lucky, two shots before those tiny dots on the horizon will be in your face, slashing at you with a choppa, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it...

But I digress. The reasons the 40k Universe are like this are to appeal to the gamer and hobbyist. The wargame is fun to play, with wide variety in the way each army is played. The models are dynamic and colorful, designed to be visually appealing.

Despite the polychromatic flair of most armies, camouflage still has its place in the 40k Universe. That place is with the Imperial Guard. (and with the Tau and a few others, but never mind...)

Most Imperial Guard players are drawn to the army for their "real world" appeal. If a player really wants "sci-fi" soldiers, they'll play Space Marines. If a player wants Space Elves, Space Orks, or Aliens, he'll play Eldar, Orks, or Tyranids. But if a player wants an army of human soldiers with armor and artillery support, i.e., like a real world modern army, they'll choose the Imperial Guard.

Thinking about Camouflage
Every Imperial Guard Commander has to put some thought into camouflage. Other Army Commanders do too, notably Tau, but most armies seem to like being in bright colors, probably due to pride and confidence in their armor (Space Marines), numbers and bravado (Orks), fashion sense (Eldar), etc. But to the Imperial Guard, camouflage is as necessary as their flak armor.

The Imperial Guard player has to take many things into account when considering a camouflage pattern, for example, the "culture" of the regiment he wishes to field. Many Imperial Guard regiments, like the Cadians, are well equipped and wear camouflage battle dress. Some, like the Mordians and Pretorians, fight in their dress uniforms, and therefore do not make use of camouflage at all. Others, like some Valhallan or Tallarn regiments, dress more for their harsh environments, and camouflage is a secondary concern to protection from the weather--but regiments still make use of it when they can.

Valhallan Imperial Guardsman ⁵Not every commander has the means to equip his soldiers with camouflage uniforms at all. Sometimes the unit may be raised rapidly, from a poor world with limited resources, and the units end up being clothed in whatever is available at the time. Other units, with vast resources, may be equipped with some of the best equipment that the Imperium has to offer. This means that with the Imperial Guard you can find units wearing anything from cameoline to undyed wool.

As I mentioned in the last article, boldly painted armies look better on the table. If you paint your Imperial Guard camouflage too well, they will blend in with the terrain and look dull. If this is what you want, then fine. But can you paint a bold, striking army, and yet still paint them in "realistic" camouflage?
An Anacostian guardsman and a Brazen Claws Marine. Clearly, the marine is more striking on the table. The guardsman's camouflage is very similar to the color of the table itself--in fact, the camouflage is almost too good.

In order to be realistic, your camouflage MUST match the terrain
No it doesn't. The camouflage of your troops does not have to match the terrain. In the real world, inappropriate camouflage is often a fact of life.

US Marines in Iraq, 2003. ⁶In this photo, soldiers are wearing desert camouflage on their helmets, but the rest of the uniform is woodland camouflage--far from ideal in the terrain of Iraq. Why? Because they are wearing MOPP gear over their desert camos. MOPP gear is battle dress to protect soldiers from toxic (nuclear, biological, and chemical, or "NBC") environments. When MOPP gear was originally issued, the US was expecting to use them in Europe, where a toxic battlefield was likely should World War III occur. Woodland camouflage in the European environment made sense. Desert camouflage MOPP gear was simply not available for Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, so the soldiers were just issued the gear that was available, inappropriately colored though it was.

There are also plenty of stories where troops, due to supply snafus, lack of funding, lack of time, or plain stupidity result in the troops on the frontline not getting what they need. For example, in the fall of 1941, when the Germans were driving to Moscow, the soldiers were not issued cold weather gear because their commanders wanted to encourage them to capture the city before the arrival of winter. Issuing cold weather gear, thus implying that it would be a long campaign, was deemed to be bad for morale. As it turned out, this was a big mistake--but it happened nonetheless.

Imperial Guard units are frequently on long campaigns, fighting on planets with markedly different environments. Due to the requirements of war, including rapid redeployment and supply problems, units may not receive the proper camouflage for a given planet, or indeed, any resupply at all. The result is that camouflage a given regiment is equipped with may be wildly inappropriate for the environment in which they are fighting. So, your Imperial Guard Regiment may be painted in a color scheme that seems out of place for the terrain on the table, but rather than being "wrong", it can be argued that this is in fact realistic.
Anacostian guardsman and a Fafnir Ice Wolf. Here, both are wearing camouflage, but the Ice Wolf's camouflage is slightly more vivid. More importantly, he's wearing winter "overwhites", which make him stand out more. If you're fighting on a woodland tabletop or a city, the argument goes that perhaps the snow melted the day before. (This outfit might seem a bit impractical on a desert battlefield however, but then, so do Valhallan overcoats...)

In the real world, troops are constantly being resupplied, and the army is notorious for delivering units inadequate or inappropriate gear. Soldiers in the field frequently have to make do with what they have. Hence their gloves, boots, packs, and web gear, etc., may be improvised with whatever they can get their hands on. Frequently this means that their equipment doesn't match their camouflage pattern. For the hobbyist, this is as important to remember as the camouflage. In other cases, the camouflage uniforms may have been issued to troops, but none of their other gear is yet available in the new pattern yet, so they have to mix and match multiple patterns.
In this picture from the movie Black Hawk Down (2001), it shows a US Army Ranger unit wearing a mish-mash of camouflage patterns--and the Rangers are an elite unit, so you might expect them to get priority when it comes to supply. At the time this event took place the army was switching between desert camouflage schemes, phasing one out while phasing in another. Here the rangers are wearing 3-color desert BDUs, 6-color desert "chocolate chip" helmet covers, and woodland camouflage body armor. If you want to see better pictures, watch the movie! ⁷

Paint Schemes
Here is a selection of camouflage schemes I have tried out and their real-world inspirations. In some cases I intentionally deviated from the strict color pattern in an attempt to make the color scheme stand out more, and thus be more attractive on the tabletop. In other cases, I just experimented in order to see what color patterns might look like.

16th Arcadian Snot Green, Bestial Brown, Camo Green, and Chaos Black.	Woodland Camouflage
Anacostian Light Infantry Knarloc Green, Goblin Green, Dark Angels Green, Khemri Brown	CADPAT
2nd Deukalion Shadow Grey, Fenris Grey, Regal Blue, Space Wolves Grey	Navy Working Uniform
Fafnir Ice Wolves Snakebite Leather, Dark Angels Green, Chaos Black, Khemri Brown	MARPAT
11th Arcadian (old) Bleached Bone, Rotting Flesh, Bestial Brown	3-color Desert
11th Arcadian Kommando Khaki, Graveyard Earth, Bleached Bone	Desert MARPAT
2nd Cydonian Codex Grey, Adeptus Battlegrey, Chaos Black	T-Pattern
5th Arcadian Codex Grey, Dheneb Stone, Fortress Grey	Universal Camouflage Pattern (Army Combat Uniform)

Useful Links
Kamouflage.net is a site with tons of samples of real-world camouflage patterns that can be used for inspiration.
Camouflage Schemes: An Essential Guide by Tammy Haye - An article on the GW Australia website.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/ - A large archive of military photos that show all sorts of camouflage.
Notes
1. White Dwarf, Issue 109, January 1989, The Imperial Guard.
2. Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition Rulebook, p62, 1998.
3. Warhammer 40,000 4th edition Rulebook, p38, 2004.
4. Warhammer 40,000 5th edition Rulebook, p34, 2008.
5. Photo taken from Games Workshop Website.
6. AP Photo.
7. Screenshot from Black Hawk Down, 2001.