101st in Iraq UPDATE

What's not to like about that so far? Great build. The face is spot on!!! I am sure you will be treating the vest etc. with weathering as you go along so I am not even going to suggest anything. Fantastic. Post more as the build progresses.

Cheers;

Gregory 

Thanks guys!

Chatting with intruder_bass he noted that the vest is indeed a little too bright. So I'll give it a light wash of  black to make it a little duller, once the pouches are done. And then weather it with a dry brush of various sand shades.

Hope to post more pics next monday.

Avus,

Really nice job. M4 with Aimpoint M2 looks like real thing. 

Interesting point, The Mage.
What I did is paint the barrel and the body of the M4 with Humrol polished steel, washed it with acrylic black and then rubbed off the excess to make the metal reappear.
Do you think painting it in gloss black would have been more realistic?

Questions to all:
This figure comes with a M-17 gas mask bag on the thigh.

• Is this equipment still issued or deployed?
• Can someone tell me what the writing on these kind of pouches are? I'd like to make a decal to place on it.

Thanks again to all.

Avus wrote:

Interesting point, The Mage. What I did is paint the barrel and the body of the M4 with Humrol polished steel, washed it with acrylic black and then rubbed off the excess to make the metal reappear. Do you think painting it in gloss black would have been more realistic?   Avus, I personally used M4/M16 in the service, but they are not as shinny due to the fact that it has been used in the field. In fact, they are more like flat gray. I also personally own CAR15, which is a civilian version of M4 and it is in flat color, so I think your rifle looks just fine to me.  I can send you pictures of my rifle if you want to use it as a reference. Questions to all: This figure comes with a M-17 gas mask bag on the thigh. Is this equipment still issued or deployed?  Yes, I've seen it still being used by local Reserve and National Guard units. Can someone tell me what the writing on these kind of pouches are? I'd like to make a decal to place on it. It has US and then Chemical Corp Insignia on it, and then it printed "MASK, PROTECTIVE FIELD" and under it "M17" Take a look at the link I've attached.  It has a pretty good visible marking of the bag. http://cgi.ebay.com/Qty-3-US-Army-M17-Gas-Mask-Carrying-Bag-Paint-Ball-Ammo_W0QQitemZ7221054492QQcategoryZ64672QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Thanks again to all.

M17 Mask hasn't been used since the mid-'90s, ODS Era.  Current Mask is the M40 mask and it has a larger, more square carrier.  Looks like below.

Mask:

Carrier:

That's good news m1garand. I would have hated to paint the rifle again!

HeavyArty and m1garand thanks for the info on the gas mask bag. I'll have to check the one of the model to see if it's an M17 or an M40 bag. In case I'll have to make some minor modifications.

Thanks.

Here's my progress. I completed the vest and the canteens (can be seen in background).

I followed the suggestions I got and washed & drybrushed the vest, to blend the colors.

Are you going for the initial deployment of the 101st Airborne in OIF?  If not I don't think they wore pro masks during operations on their 2d tour since the threat of NBC was nil. When I was in OEF our pro masks ended up on the bottom of our dufflebags in the connex.

Heck as soon as we ditched ours it was "hasta la vista." Few joes are gonna strap that thing on if they dont have ta!

Just trying help alleviate additional headaches for the good modeler!

LPT319 wrote:

Its not like it will detract from the finished product. A good albi would be their Supply SGT sux.

ROTFL!

I'll add this to the tag on the base!

wow that's really looking great so far, i did the same one not too long ago, and i'm not even sure if this is accurate, but i added in a led foil strap, and a little copper wire sinch kinda clip, here a few pictures if you were interested, again, i dont know if that's actually how the pack is put together, but i figured a soldier wouldnt want that gas mask smaking up and down and swinging around, plus even if its not a standard strap, im pretty sure the spec ops guys add on all kinds of extra pockets and straps and things anyway, so this might just be my invention. but sorry, i got side tracked, i really like how your kevlar vest turned out, im jealous haha

Psst,

Your figure looks really good.  Especially your paint job on aimpoint lense. 

Thanks psstoff995. Yours looks good, too. Sadly the pictures are a little blurry.

The idea of strapping down the bag is not bad at all. I might consider doing it, too.

One thing: what are the canteens and smoke grenades attached to? I have this problem, too.
I mean the figure doesn't wear an Alice belt (or similar) underneath the vest. The only place to attach things on this soldier are the loops on the vest.
So were the heck am I supposed to attach all the equipment this figure comes with?

Avus wrote:

One thing: what are the canteens and smoke grenades attached to? I have this problem, too. I mean the figure doesn't wear an Alice belt (or similar) underneath the vest. The only place to attach things on this soldier are the loops on the vest. So were the heck am I supposed to attach all the equipment this figure comes with?

yeah i know what you mean, for the smoke grenades, i just kinda shoved them up under his right arm, and if you view it head on its harder to notice that they're just floating there. the back left canteen i used to cover up the end of the gas mask strap, because if i remember correctly i think it did something funny or something didnt quite match with the legs and the torso. but if you could drill out the little loops somehow you could probably slide the grenade handles through there, and he does have a camel back, so he probably wouldn't need the canteens unless he was ooon a reeeal longrang patrol or something, so if youd be ok with just leaving them off im sure that would work too. my problem was i didnt feel like parting with the pieces, because i really didnt have any other use for 1/16 scale greanades or anything, figured i might as well tuck them in there. what did you make your water straw/tube thing out of? mine was just copper wire but yours looks to have turned out much nicer

m1garand wrote:

Also, modern troopers now use Camel back hydration system on their back (and Interceptor vests are compatible with it) rather than carrying canteens.  I've seen our troops wearing two canteens and those were attached to back of the vest.

psstoff995 wrote:

he does have a camel back, so he probably wouldn't need the canteens unless he was ooon a reeeal longrang patrol or something, so if youd be ok with just leaving them off im sure that would work too

Thanks for the hint, guys. I was thinking to leave them out or to find some loops on the vest (most likely on the back) to attach the canteens.

psstoff995 wrote:

what did you make your water straw/tube thing out of? mine was just copper wire but yours looks to have turned out much nicer

I used the rubber hose (well actually it isn't a hose because it hasn't got a hole) that came with the figure. BTW I noticed it looks like a copper wire only because you said so, guess if you don't go around telling people no one will notice.

Avus wrote:

I used the rubber hose (well actually it isn't a hose because it hasn't got a hole) that came with the figure. BTW I noticed it looks like a copper wire only because you said so, guess if you don't go around telling people no one will notice.

really? haha cause i thought my figure should have come with something like that, but it didnt come with any kind of vinal hose or anything. i also have a 1/16 scale spc. ops. guy from verlindin, he looks like he's holding a GPS thing, and he's yelling and pointing, he also did not come with a vinal hose for his camel back, so i had assumed it just didnt come with one. his M4 was haning around his neck, but they didnt include anything for that, so it looks like another lead foil/coper wire project for me oh and sorry about the blurriness of the photos, the lighting was bad and it gave me a real shallow depth of field, if u need any more referance style photos, let me know the angles and ill try to get some better lighting. good luck!

m1garand wrote:

I should take some pictures of my interceptor vest and how it is set up.

Now that would be a great idea! Thanks.

psstoff995 wrote:

oh and sorry about the blurriness of the photos, the lighting was bad and it gave me a real shallow depth of field, if u need any more referance style photos, let me know the angles and ill try to get some better lighting.

Never mind. It's just to have a better idea of your great work.

plymonkey wrote:

What's your color reference on the body armor Avus?

My reference is a BDU from the 90's and an M65 Jacket from the same period I have in my wardrobe. There are some color differences between the two items. The BDU has some sort of green shade to it (like the vest I made on my figure) so the light color doesn't look like yellow but more like sage green. The M-65's yellow looks like German panzer yellow (WW2).

plymonkey wrote:

Are the new, T marked hand gaurds made of an alloy of some sort?

As far as I know they are made of plastic, thus I weathered it with grey and not metal. Maybe it doesn't look like that on the picture but I guarantee that's what I did.

Thanks for your observations, keep them coming.