An experiment with DPM

"How not to be seen"

Disruptive Pattern Material, or camouflage, is a mainstay of modern military forces, but not something we see much of on tiny space dolls  miniatures outside of ww2 historicals.  There's a couple of reasons for this; firstly because DPM is hard to paint, and secondly DPM is hard to paint right.

Which meant, of course, that I had to attempt it on my recently aquired Hunzakut Sniper, who handily enough has the special skill Camouflage.





A quick google search led me to two fantastic resources for painting DPM - this little tutorial from Studio McVey, and the gigantic collection of camo patters that is kamouflage.net.  Because I'd already settled on a Mars-ish color scheme, I looked at desert and autumn patterns. To make things easier, and to ensure it fit in with the rest of the squad, I decided to build the pattern out of the same colors I'd used on their clothing and armor*.


When painting DPM it's best to start with the lightest color first, which on my other figures is the Desert Yellow of their uniforms.  I decided to use Bleached Bone instead to increase the contrast, and rely on a wash to bring it back down to a similar shade.

I forgot to take WIP pictures of the body, so have these arms instead.

Just pretend this is exciting

 The  next step was to add irregular shaped but regular spaced splotches of Solar Macharius Orange, then smaller, slightly overlapping patches of Dark Flesh, then finally scattered dots of Adeptus Battle Grey in a nod to the classic American "Chocolate Chip" Desert Camo**.  The whole thing was then given a Devlan Mud wash.

Lookin a bit Hitler-y there, Mr. Hunzakut... 

I applied the wash more heavily than I should have, liberally brushing it over the whole figure rather than carefully directing it into creases and areas of shade, which lead to a more muddy look that was obscuring detail.  It didn't help that some of the grey dots weren't quite dry at the time of washing, leading to some smudged areas.

To bring the detail back up, I carefully applied highlights to a few areas, and brushed more wash into selected areas.  I avoided the overall wash on the arms, you can see the difference in the pictures, though now I am not sure I like the brighter look!  Maybe I'll go over them with a very light coat.  I also decided that the brown straps were getting lost in the DPM, so changed them to grey.

The rifle is part of my continuing experiments with Non Metallic Metals, and the leatherwork is just Snakebite Leather with a Devlan Mud wash, with Bleached Bone added to the base color for highlights.  His skin tone is a little closer to how I want the rest of the squad's, a Tallarn Flesh base, Devlan Mud wash, then highlighting towards Vomit Brown, with a little Elf Flesh in there for the final highlights.

It's not my best paint job by any metric, but I'm now confident that I could apply the same techniques to any other troopers with Camouflague.  Just don't ask me how I'm going to represent  Thermoptics.









* All of which don't exist any more thanks to GW's new paint line.  I'm going to be in trouble when my pots of Solar Macharius Orange and Dark Flesh run out.


** Or is that Dessert Camo?