11 Oct 2014

GPMG Team

Hello guys,

It has been a tough mind battle, but I decided it is time to tackle the camo and I present you my Slovene GPMG team. 

Each platoon would have a HQ squad with three GPMG teams (pairs, actually). I only got one and given how much fire power they spit out in games, there is little need for any more.



As our army uses the "European" version of the machine gun, and I am converting mine from American infantry (that uses "American" version with a heat shield, just like in case of the minimis), I "had" to swap the barrel for a bit of (way too crooked) wire. In addition, I sculpted something roughly resembling our aiming device.  Both of them got camo straps on the helmet and canteens. Again, vests were left intact as it would require too much work to make them proper for a very little gain.
Assistant gunner originally came with holding an M4 rifle, which obviously had to go. As replacing it with an F2000S would requite a lot of cutting, I decided to just give him a box of ammo instead - it shows that his primary role is to feed the machine gun. His rifle was then "strapped" on his back.

As I've said many times before, the Slovenian army is now using a new pattern, called SloCam (really!). It was developed in Slovenia and it is clearly inspired by Multicam (as is the new British MTP). While this means that in wargaming, painting Slovenes, Brits and - to some degree - Americans is much like painting the same army, it helps with  the recognition of friendlies. It also helps with finding a painting tutorial, as the pattern seems quite daunting. I had to adjust the colour palette a bit, as SloCam is much greener and thus more fitting to forests than Multicam. It also doesn't incorporate any black tones at all.

I did took notes of the paints I've used with my Humvee crews, so I am working with what I've learned and what new I've came up with.

Light green base
I went for german field grey with some goblin green and white added until it "felt right". I then drybrushed it with the roughly same mix, with more white added.

Ochre patches - There is a sand colour as well, but ochre has a bit stronger tone so I'm only painting this one

Dark green patches - Again, it seems there are three different greens, but with green basic colour and dark green, third would probably not be visible enough as camo is crowded using 5 colours already

Dark brown and bone stipples. There is actually a lot more white in it than there is brown.

Vests and equipment are in the old pattern. It's a german field grey base with black, brown and green "amoebas".

Camo didn't quite look right even after the black wash (I should invest in an ink!), so I drybrushed it all together with some brightened fieldgrey. It dusted it up and hopefully brought out some details. It also fades the camo on the vests, which hides the cammo effort, but it's a bit more realistic as far as I'm concerned.


Spent rounds around the gun are something I was quite happy to put on my FOW bases, they really add a touch. Keep in mind there is still foliage missing.
Their bases are conglomerates of round and square 25 and 20mm bases. I saw that Vampifan is basing his prone figures on 20mm bases, which I agree looks a lot better - but not for the gunner as I would hate to see his gun and legs poking off the base.
While I am quite happy with it, something that I can't put finger on bothers me. It's clearly too dark, but I think there should be way more patches and above all way more white dots.
If anyone finds something else, please feel free to comment!

Below are two photos of what I was after - duplicating it seems a lot harder than one would imagine!
 Also, a photo with soldiers using new uniforms with old vests (look at how faded they are). It includes a properly dressed female soldier :D.






19 comments:

  1. Nice work dude! Replicating camo is a lot harder than it looks, you've done a fine job dude.
    That GPMG would make a mess of a zombie horde!

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    1. Thanks Bob!

      Not sure about how useful they would be against zombies, high rate of inaccurate fire doesn't sound like the best way to tackle the zombie hordes!

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  2. Nice job on these minis!

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  3. hmm GPMG vs Zombies.... head hits would make sure but limb hits would slow them down a lot.

    I usually don't like lying figures but these two do look good. Perhaps I need to get some bases like that. Camo also very good.

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    1. I think there's no reason to include one in the days when ammo is worth more than gold!

      I am not a fan of prone figures either, but with weapon teams like that, it's not too bad. It's either this or they carry pieces of scenery with them (which I actually like, tiny dioramas!)

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  4. Nice looking weapon team. Quite like the camo which I find very tricky to copy.

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    1. Thanks mate. I went for the MTP and Multicam tutorials for, it but I've picked my own colours based on what I got and my "findings" when I was reading the articles on the two. I'm really disappointed that it came out that dark, though.

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  5. Looks great mate- your work on the guns is really admirable. The camo is good too. Your right about the difference between the new camo and old vests. Reminds me of the Brit conversion to MTP when you'd see a few people with DPM body arnour....

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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    1. Cheers Pete, I'm glad you like them :).
      I think two different patterns add to the miniature, as I find them much more interesting this way, painting them all in the same pattern would be a lot easier, but I think they just blend in (which would be good IRL but bad for a miniature!).

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  6. That is a damn hard camo to duplicate!!!

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    1. Hah, it is a lot harder than the tiger stripe, but then again there has been 50 years of advancement in between the two!

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  7. I doubt the photos do them justice but they do look good. I dislike prone figures even more than I dislike kneeliing figures ! It's one of the unavoidable bug-bears of gaming - just think of the cost of having to have duplicates !

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    1. The thing is, with weapons like this, they would just look odd if they would not be deployed probably. It is annoying to have a mini soldier that is laying behind a wall he should be firing over, though!

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  8. I think you're too hard on yourself! These look very good already and the addition of some foliage will help to soften the greys and accentuate the green in the clothing, I think.

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  9. Looks like you replicated it pretty well to me!

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