[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

3rd fire team done. The model on the right is the Squad Leader.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

2nd Fire Team done, one more and the squad is ready.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

First Fire team done. I slightly changed the painting of the woodland camouflage, adding 70.940 Saddle Brown to 70.872 Chocolate Brown as a highlightning step, thus creating more contrast and making the brown more visible.

The 3 colour desert DCU was painted in the following way (all Vallejo colours):

  • 70.837 Pale Sand

  • 1/2 70.886 Green Grey1/2 70.928 Light Flesh

  • 1/2 70.940 Saddle Brown1/2 70.837 Pale Sand

  • 73.203 Umber Shade Wash

The Boots are

  • 70.977 Desert Yellow

  • 70.917 Beige

  • 73.203 Umber Shade Wash

Webbing is

  • 70.968 Flat Green

  • Secret Weapon Wash 008 Baby Poop

  • 1/2 72.094 Black Ink1/2 H2Oused to define lines between single items

  • 70.968 Flat Green


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

The Humvees and turret gunners are done except the mutt splattering. First fire team started.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

I finished painting the Humvees by painting the tires black and the undercarriage in a black grey leaving the rust showing through.

They will receive some dust/mud airbrushed on to weather them and they still miss their rear antenna, but part from that they are done.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

I painted the stowage on the two Humvees. Two in sand colour, one in woodland camouflage. At the same time as the woodland bag I also painted the vests of the .50cal gunners.

For the woodland I based the area in Vallejo 70.893 Dark Green. Next, I added broad stripes of 70.872 Chocolate Brown. Finally I added smaller blotches in 70.988 Khaki.

I then added a highlight by adding 70.928 Light Flesh to the base colours.

Finally I added small lines with 71.067 Black between adjacent colours.

All in all the scheme is a bit dark for 15mm, with the next models I will probably add some white to the colours.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

I used the base colours to lighten up the areas where the black ink pooled or darkened the vehicle too much otherwise.

Then I applied highlights by mixing Vallejo 70.928 light flesh into the base colours.

My last brush strokes for today where white and orange red for the lights.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

I touched up all the areas that got rubbed off, painted the windows and blacklined the entire models.

Then I protected the work done so far with a coat of gloss varnish from the airbrush.


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

Fail.

I used my thumb to gently rub off the masking film. This worked well on flat areas, basically. On the parts with much sculpted detail, like the doors, it was more difficult to really get every last scrap of it. Additionally, on quite some parts I rubbed off the paint as well, including the base coat...

:-(

If I will do this again on other models (I have four LAVs and two LVTP7A1s for my Marines waiting to get painted), I will definitley give the model a coat of Gloss Varnish over the green base colour, to help preventing the rubbing off of the basecoat, creating a sturdy protective layer.

Concerning the small crevices, either this method is not suited for these kind of small details, or I need to apply the masking film in a thicker layer. That way, the masking film might get stronger, peeling itself away totally, instead of small pieces ripping off of it and sticking to the model...


[2003]¶
USMC Infantry Squad with 3 Humvees¶

Having painted only 28mm Fantasy and SiFi stuff for some time, it was time for a change. I took off my shelf the Marine squad and the three Humvees, which I bought, de-flashed and based two years ago, after seeing Generation Kill. But the bug bite healed and I was sidetracked by other projects before I started painting them.

Time to change that.

I basecoated with my airbrush, using two light coats of Vallejo 70.837 Pale Sand for the Marines, and Vallejo 70.894 Russian Green for the Humvees.

The undercarriage of the Humvees got hit with a quick spray blast of Vallejo 71.069 Rust.

For the camouflage on the Humvees I tried something new. In the above photo you can already see the Vallejo 70.523 Liquid mask I applied over all the areas that should remain green. I then applied a coat of Vallejo 70.846 Mahagony Sand.

After another application of Liquid mask (visible in the above photo) where the brown should remain, I sprayed the final coat of black. To get a black that was already slighty bleached by the sun, I used a mix of Vallejo 71.057 Black [1/3], 70.862 Black Grey [1/3] and Thinner [1/3].

The plan is to remove the liquid mask and to have a perfect camouflage scheme :-)

Lets see how it turns out...

I already found it difficult to see exactly where the mask film on the green coat was when painting the mask film on the brown coat... so let's see how this turns out...

It would probably have been easier to just brush the brown and black on. But we will see.