Alpine sniper Part I

This post is one of a series that will illustrate the build and background behind his ‘character.’ The first steps in building the figure were the normal cleaning and priming done to all resin pieces. I began initially by assembling the feet to the body armour leaving the arms and head separate. I took note of the kit placement on the box art and decided to place the grenades and spare pistol magazines high on the shooters MOLLE as if he had stripped off his M4 pouches and was left with his bare essentials for this particular foot patrol. I decided early on to make use of the head without the helmet as it seemed to provide a more ’rugged’ in-country look. The first part to be painted was the Barrett .50 which I undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black and then gave a simple highlight with Citadel Boltgun Metal all over. I wanted to give a look of Duracoat and general dust to the finished weapon and to that end I gave a healthy very thin wash of Vallejo Iraqi Sand, Citadel Codex Grey and a spot of Vallejo Burnt Umber. The details such as recesses and the ejection slide were then given a wash of Chaos Black and Burnt Umber at 4:1. At this point I began work on the figure proper.

The whole figure was given a basecoat of Citadel Snakebite Leather. Once this had dried I applied a wash to the recesses across the figure using Citadel Black Ink. The reference I was using for modern marines in Arid MARPAT camouflage was Concord’s “Marines on the Ground: Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.” The worn in field fatigues pictured in this book led me to use Iraqi Sand as the primary colour on which the fatigues would be based. I wanted the end result to go slightly past the Vallejo colour and take a subtly more creamy tone as I felt the Iraqi Sand was a little too yellow. The first highlights were applied with a bit too much aggression I am ashamed to say and concealed most of the wash work. They were composed of Iraqi Sand, Burnt Umber, Codex Grey and Bleached Bone at an initial ratio of 6:3:1:1. Successive highlights were created by phasing out the burnt umber and making the grey and bleached bone more prominent.

Stay tuned as the next phases are soon to come! Hical, James.