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hey dakka, just tried a technique i come up with doing acu camo, i painted this shoulder pad and do you reckon i should do my whole sniper team in the camo?

does it look convincing?

c&c appreciated
the guy on the left's shoulder plate

As ACU, no, its not very convincing. ACU has grey, grey-green and grey-tan. you're just using shades of grey. Also, you pattern looks a little more blotchy then ACU should.

That said, don't be discouraged. You've actually made a really cool urban camo scheme.

I actually think it looks pretty good for ACU camo. Small patterns, generally a gray color (ACUs bleach out very quickly in the sun and in the wash). But Commander Endova does make a point. Fresh ACUs are green, gray, and tan, but all muted pretty gray, more than JUST varying shades of gray. I would put it this way; good work, tune your colors if you can. If not? That looks like good vet ACU colors!

God I hope they change our uniforms sooner than later.... I hate ACUs..... I miss my brown and greens.... polished leather boots, sewn on tabs, rank, flag, and patches, crisp cuts and edges. I looked professional damn-it!

Rotting flesh with varying mixes involving chaos black can produce all of the ACU tones. Give it the greenish tint you need. My pattern wasn't quite as fine as yours.

I think it looks magnificent. All you might need to do is, as was pointed out, is fine-tune the colors. But then again, everyone else seems to be talking about new acu cammo. For something that's been in the field, I think it looks great!

Skinnattittar wrote:
God I hope they change our uniforms sooner than later.... I hate ACUs..... I miss my brown and greens.... polished leather boots, sewn on tabs, rank, flag, and patches, crisp cuts and edges. I looked professional damn-it!

My section SGT in Iraq used to say that the only fight ACU's worked in was a food fight with Cesar salad.

What ACU's asre perfect camo as long as we are fighting in a gravel pit lol. But mate i think your camo looks great not like ACU but it still looks really good mate

for those of us lifelong civilians, what's an acu?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Combat_Uniform

We called them Digi-cam. Due them all being based on a pixel plan.

Best way to re-produce them would be to grid off the model with black, and fill it in.

I think it looks excellent. I think that piece is a good representation of ACU's that have been laundered a few times from a distance. They're experimenting with a different kind of pattern now, instead of the pixelated squares, it's a bunch of blobs using the same colors as ACU.

As for effectiveness, I think the Canadians and US Marines got it right. Greenish pixelations for wooded areas, browns and tans for the desert, not a compromise with shades of gray.

Unless you're home on leave..

my colour pallet is only greys, for the guard army thats why i did them grey

I like it, I've got ACUs right next to me and the pattern looks pretty much like your model.. Mine are alittle old and worn but if they were newer I think they would be a good match..

I think its good physcosamatic and if you did a whole model like that people who have seen ACU's would get that thats the pattern you where doing..

"Digi" is what the Marines call their camo. Odd bit of information; Digital camouflage was originally designed in the US during Vietnam, but was considered too expensive at the time (something about getting the dyes to actually stick to the material and not bleaching out extremely quickly, like tiger stripe did). Similar designs date back to WWI, and maybe even earlier, of course they weren't called "digital," but they used multi-colored squares instead of solid color or blob patterned uniforms.

The current generation was developed by an American company I believe, even though Canada adopted them first. The Marines got them next, on contract from the Army of all people (a lot of Army equipment is tested on the Marine Corps first, being a smaller force than the Army and easier to reequip. And the Marine's are willing to accept due to their extremely poor budget). So when "digital camouflage" finally made it to the Army, a lot of brass (officers) got to make bad decisions.

Pros of ACUs:
Their thin material breath very well.
Lighter uniforms means more can be carried, or take up less weight and space.
The light colors stain quickly and easily, meaning they adopt the local colors and blend in more naturally.

Cons:
The thin material wears out quickly, and is rather weak.
No wind protection.
Due to their short wear life, they need to be replaced quickly and often, meaning their fresh light colors stand out in just about any environment more often than they will blend in.

wittzo wrote:Unless you're home on leave..

LMAO

I honestly didn't notice the guy sitting on the couch for a good 30 seconds.

Anyway, I think the model looks alright, personally. I actually think you nailed the digital pattern, even if the colors aren't "right".

Great paint job

As a camo pattern it looks fine to me. I don't mind the 'shades of grey' thing at all, but I would recommend a few non-grey bits of equipment to avoid them looking bland, grey can look lifeless (I'm talking visual impact on the gaming table here, obviously in the real world you'd _want_ camo uniforms to blend into the background )

My only real concern is how fiddly is it to paint? Even though you're only planning on one unit looking like this, you'll learn to hate them if they take 2 hours each to paint...

Sidstyler wrote:
LMAO

I honestly didn't notice the guy sitting on the couch for a good 30 seconds.

Anyway, I think the model looks alright, personally. I actually think you nailed the digital pattern, even if the colors aren't "right".

*double takes* I didn't see that there was a guy on the couch until you said something!

Very good paint scheme! My only concern is that if you paint the entire model like that, it'll look cluttered. Still, brilliant painting!