Painting ACUPAT

[GazB]

Until I discovered how to paint Multicam, most of the modern U.S. figures have required me to paint them in the digital ACUPAT. 

 

This is, without doubt, the most difficult pattern I have ever tried to paint for a simple reason: colour.

 

I once did Woodland MARPAT on four Marine figures and they turned out well because the colours worked, but ACUPAT is a nightmare for it. There doesn't seem to be any official colour palette for it beyond the original, which is way too dark. Most of the time when you see pics of it, its almost bright grey and all of myfigures so far have tended to be on the darker side (I would spray with Tamiya Buff, then striped it with Dark Grey, then paint on more Buff to represent the pattern). It somewhat creates the effect, but its still too dark. Even the ACU decals supplied with the Trumpeter Stryker Medical team seem incorrect, giving the whole thing a green tint. 

 

So I was somewhat pleased to discover this: 

 

 

I looked up the associated blog and discovered the colours mentioned are Vallejo. So I thought, great! I bought up the colours, did the listed mixes and...they don't match. They don't match the real thing or even the figure above. The colours are completely wrong, as are the specified mixes (not to mention the percentages aren't listed, which is a pain). In fact most of the mixes seem to have a base of Deck Tan over Khaki Grey, which just from a quick look at the bottle, tells me its not going to mix into anything like that shown. 

 

I must say I find this supremely irritating. Not only did I purchase the four colours particularly because of this (£10 to do so), but they seem to be incorrect with perhaps the exception of the Deck Tan, but even then its a closer match when used unmixed.

 

In fact the only mix that looks like it might work as stated is for the boots.

 

Can anyone shed light one what mixes would produce the results above? Being a stickler for as much accuracy as I can achieve with what's available, not getting the colours right really eats me up. 

 

Thanks,

 

Gaz