As an avid figure modeler, I was given the opportunity to examine this new paint set by Ammo, which replicates the rather fiddly camouflage pattern often seen on modern Russian infantry. As an avowed enamel/oil paint aficionado, I thought it would be interesting to examine this acrylic set from my own jaundiced perspective.

To try out these paints, I elected to use a rather crude figure from my collection, the argument being it’s easy to make a good figure look good, but somewhat more challenging to get the same results from a poor figure. The uniform is not exactly right, but I was more interested in giving these paints a good test than in creating something to add to my collection.

To give the overlay paints some “tooth” I airbrushed a coat of light grey lacquer primer onto the figure first. This primer coat was allowed to dry for several days.

The Ammo paint set consists of four 17ml bottles (roughly half an ounce), the colors being the underlay green followed by a darker overlay green and a red-brown, as well as a black paint to use for outlining. I wanted to get more of a range than that, so I used some tube acrylics obtained from an art store for lighter shades. The Ammo paint mixed exceedingly well with these tube paints, so I had no problem doing a bit of light shading of the underlay green.

On figures with complex camouflage, my typical approach is to figure out what the underlay color is, and fully shade the figure as if that is the only uniform color. Then I use thinned overlay colors so that the shading beneath is still visible. I decided to use this approach on this figure.

The Ammo paint proved to be less opaque than I am accustomed to, which was most noticeable during my initial application. However, mixing it with the art acrylics seemed to rectify this issue. The base coat dried to a slight eggshell finish but looked quite acceptable. As I tend to apply a flat coat to my figures on completion, I did not consider this a problem.

It was on the application of the overlay green and red-brown where the somewhat translucent nature of the paint turned out to be an advantage, permitting the underlying shading to show through without the usual paint thinning I do with enamels. For this camouflage pattern, the overlay consists mostly of small irregular speckles liberally applied. This worked out quite well. The black which I had previously employed to outline pockets, and such also showed effectively through this overlay.

As a final touch (and this is just me) I used a bit of light tan acrylic from a tube to do some highlighting of edges, as I found the straight black outlining to be a bit harsh. The result was quite satisfactory for such a crude figure, and the paint did the trick better than I’d initially expected.

All in all, I am still not an avid fan of acrylics, though I have certainly seen some spectacular results with this medium. The Ammo paints did as advertised and replicated the pictures of Russian soldiers I’ve seen on the internet well, limited only by my own painting skills. There is not any reason a good figure modeler cannot get outstanding results from this figure paint set. If this is representative of Ammo’s line of figure paints, they really seem to be good value for the money. I heartily recommend them.

My thanks to Mig Jimenez for a chance to test out these paints, and to IPMS/USA for trusting me to do them justice.