With the release of the new Pacific book, I have been gung ho to get most of my stuff done for the theater. I long time ago, I had bought some mediocrely painted marines at a convention in Virginia. I did not have a need for them at that time, but the price was so low, I figured they were worth it. I shoved these in a box and had not looked at them since. Well, maybe y years later, I decided to see what I could do with them to get them fit for service.
The paint jobs were not great, but usable. I spent a night prying them off the cardboard bases they were on and organized them to see what I could make. Going through them and comparing to the OBs in the new Pacific book, I saw I was short figures here and there. I went to my go to and hit the Gajo website and found some figures that would work in their older catalog. With all that, I was able to get four platoons and some support weapons. Those arrived and I started to mount them on some sprayed Battlefront bases.
Once all the figures were set, I pumiced up the bases with some desert color from Vallejo. That set and I hit them all with some brown wash and let that set. A couple of tan dry brushes and painting the boarders with some craft paint tan I had (matched the spray paint color of the bases).
Next came the flocking and texting… I started with some green flock here and there to hide some imperfections and break up the sand. I then added the green leafy tufts and some spiky tufts to each base. I decided to add the spiky tufts, to differentiate these from my Japanese on the tabletop.
I finished up with a Tamiya matt finish spray. With that, I have all my US Marine troops ready to go for the full Pacific war period. Now I just need to get to work on the boxes of unpainted vehicles to go with the army!
- Manteuffel