9th Infantry Division Grunt Bust

[JamesOLeary]

I decided to try out some of Calvin Tan's new face painting techniques that use AK Interactive's QuickGEN and GEN 3 paints. To do so, I am going to slightly convert and paint this bust from Young Miniatures. Instead of him being from the 1st CAV, I am scraping away the 1st CAV patch and will replace it with the 9th Infantry Division patch. I am also replacing the M16 with the M203 grenade launcher with just an M16. The bust does not have any grenade bandoleers nor a grenadier's vest, just a bulge in one of the pockets of the M16 bandoleer that indicates a 40mm grenade, but that is not how a grenadier would have carried his rounds. I am redoing that particular pocket to eliminate that feature.

Here is the face the first day I worked on it. The Calvin Tan technique is working rather nicely, although I used a couple different colors than his formula called for since I did not have those particular colors.

Here is what the face currently looks like. I painted the eyes, hair, and 5 o'clock shadow. There are a couple spots I need to touch up, but I think he is turning out rather well.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,
James

 

[JamesOLeary]

Here are photos of the 9th Infantry Division patch and change to the second pocket of the bandoleer



Primed to paint...

 

[JamesOLeary]

After priming with Tamiya Grey Fine Primer, I applied a coat of AK Interactive's Ultra Matte varnish. Then I applied a few coats of AK Interactive's QuickGen US Uniform OD Green to the entire torso, using less on the suspenders than the uniform. This helped define the shadow areas. I then started painting the uniform with Scale 75 Ardennes Green and Vallejo Sunny Skintone.

 

[JamesOLeary]

In these photos I am in the process of applying the base color of Ardennes Green and gradually highlighting by adding Sunny Skintone. The suspenders and bandoleer stand out with the QuickGen, but I did not apply it evenly enough to those areas, so I ended up painting them in the next step.

 

[JamesOLeary]

Here I have painted the suspenders minus the tape that was applied to some of the buckles as well as the bandoleer minus the stamping on the second pocket. I glued the head on.

I painted the name and US ARMY tags and the 9th Infantry Division patch.

 

[moon puppy]

Primer then a seal coat of flat? Why do this?

Flesh tones look amazing!

 

[JamesOLeary]

For the stamping on the second pocket of the bandoleer, I first tried using an Ultra Fine Tip Sharpie marker, but the tip was still too wide. I painted over that mistake. When that failed, I thought perhaps I could apply some dry transfers like I do for vehicle markings. I had some that were the right size and font. However, they ended up not working out as half of them would not stick. I scraped off what did stick and repainted that part of the pocket. As a last resort, I decided to paint the numbers and letters freehand. It was a monotonous and time consuming endeavor, but I think it turned out well enough.



The elements for the stampings on bandoleers are:

5.56 MM
BALL M193
10 RD CLIPS
LOT LC 1-112

These elements identify the type of ammunition, method of packing, and lot number that was originally packed into the bandoleer. The lot number is one that was packed by the Lake City Arsenal in 1968. I chose that one since the name tapes on the bust are slanted along the top of the pockets rather than straight which was a practice that began in late 1968/early 1969.


This real bandoleer is from 1970.

 

[JamesOLeary]

Primer then a seal coat of flat? Why do this?

Flesh tones look amazing!

With the QuickGen paints, primer alone is not enough to get the QuickGen paints to get enough of a bite to gather in places where you intend for them to go. The Ultra Matte varnish gives the surface more bite for the formulation that the QuickGen are made of to work.

 

[Brokeneagle]

With the QuickGen paints, primer alone is not enough to get the QuickGen paints to get enough of a bite to gather in places where you intend for them to go. The Ultra Matte varnish gives the surface more bite for the formulation that the QuickGen are made of to work.

So True James, I find the same thing with the Russian tanks and the Next Gen Acrylics from Ammo and AK. Ultra Matt works really well to get that 'tooth' with a nice matt surface.