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 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.