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I am about to paint my l96 desert camo, and I'm have trouble picking a pattern to use.
If anybody had any past experiences, or ideas that would be great.

[deadeye11]

If done right, digital desert always looks good.

[MetallicaFatCat]

Try Shwell's sponging method.

[frogman17]

Print out stencils of your favorite pattern online and go nuts with the spray paint!

[xbeeongx]

I am about to paint my l96 desert camo, and I'm have trouble picking a pattern to use.
If anybody had any past experiences, or ideas that would be great.

Remove all your internals, tape off your scope lenses, and put your bolt handle in the receiver (but remove all the internals), and put your L96 on its bipod.

Depending on how many colors / tones you want, you can either take a casual, random pattern, or you can do a two toned tiger stripe pattern, which is pretty easy and effective.

I made a OD / Tan tiger stripe scheme. Simply remove the internals, tape down the scope's lenses, and put a layer of either OD or tan on the whole thing. Then, get a piece of cardboard, or a manilla folder, and carve out a random, repeating pattern of stripes. This is your stencil. Then, just use the stencil to make the stripes on the gun out of the other color you chose. Simple and effective.

The closer you hold the stencil to the gun while you spray, the better the resolution and definition of the tiger stripe. Conversely, the further you hold the stencil from the gun while you spray, the more subdued and subtle the transition of Color 1 to Color 2 will look. Either one will work fine, it's just about user preference.

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Thanks for the ideas. I have decided to go with a sort of desert three color pattern. By the way I'm only panting the body, so no need to tape off any lenses or stuf like that.
Also Im thinking about posting pictures of the gun when I'm done.

[lulukchoo23]

Quite honestly, I think stripes and patterns like digital or anything are just for pure looks. I've found that just taking like 3 or more cans, 5 ideally, of different shades of the same color, along with aome other colors that are common (green, brown, some tan and black and gray), and just raping your gun with the cans in completely random patterns is the most effective. It's like a swirl of colors, which is more camouflaged.

Desert just means you rape your gun with light browns, a little black, maybe a smudge of dark green and gray, and some waves of darkish brown.

Modest, but effective. And easy.

[xbeeongx]

3 or more cans, 5 ideally, of different shades of the same color, along with aome other colors that are common (green, brown, some tan and black and gray), and just raping your gun with the cans in completely random patterns is the most effective. It's like a swirl of colors, which is more camouflaged.

Not necessarily. The human eye only directly sees a very small portion of the environment. The visual cortex does a LOT of "filling in" with regards to peripheral vision and gaps in patterns. Obviously, our interpretations of "completely random patterns" might differ, so don't take this as a contradiction or a debate to your post.

The more effective way to blend is to do a multicam layering and transition approach: the colors you run over the gun should transition, not just get placed next to each other in a completely random selection. Meaning, transition from a flat dark brown, to a light tan, to a sage, to white over a length of a 30 or 40cm, with small "interstitial" of the previous color . (ie, read above, and the light tan section will have small interstitials of flat dark brown, the sage section will have interstitials of light tan, etc. )

The idea is to cause the human eye to not notice the abrupt changes in something's pattern, like black to white, and the interstitials in each color break up the color pattern in itself (while making sure to not make a "pattern" out of breaking up the pattern itself, if that makes sense).

[lulukchoo23]

I suppose so. I may not have neen clear enough. Hehe, of course I didn't mean to just completely blow your gun up with random colors so that it just looks like a single blob color. Transitions between colors are what makes it work effectively in multiple environments.

You don't exactly want a perfectly painted gun that matches a bush, cause it will stick out in a sandy or plane-y environment. At the same time, just mashing everything into a blob doesn't even do anything to help camouflage. Also, cool designs don't do anything either, since there no digital plants out there, or tigers you can hide behind with brown and green stripes.

[xbeeongx]

there no digital plants out there, or tigers you can hide behind with brown and green stripes.

True. But the idea behind the digital pattern vs. the organic tiger stripe pattern is the concept of resolution, not pattern mimicry.

 If your pattern is of a larger resolution (like digital) then it is more effective in concealment at longer distances because the larger amount of individual hue will get lost in all the scenery of the wide landscape the human eye is focusing on.

Fine, high resolution patterns like tiger stripes will blend better at closer ranges, while conversely, the stripe pattern will bleed together and the mish mash of 3 to 5 colors will appear monochromatic due to the inability of the eye to resolve the pattern of the object at further ranges. 

[L a R i A t]

I normally go with a basecoat, then I will use some grass or something as like a stencil. Then I'll dust the gun to blend everything.



I hope this picture shows what I'm trying to tell you.

[MarineSGT]

If results and look are important, go with Duracoat.  They have pre-cut templates, paint, airbrush, air cans all in a package for the whole process.  I did this on my VSR a couple years back and it came out amazing and was much different than using something like Krylon as Duracoat is more of an epoxy resin paint of sorts.  Quite a fun project too...

Here is my old link to the process.  Mine was a camo theme, but they have templates for every style.

http://www.airsoftretreat.com/forums/index.php?topic=35273.msg770487#msg770487

And check out their website for additional designs and packages available.  You will be thrilled with the results for sure 

http://lauerweaponry.com/

[xbeeongx]

I hope this picture shows what I'm trying to tell you.

 
That fluted barrel and muzzle brake are gorgeous pieces of flare! I've wanted to get both of those for so long, but I need the functionality of my mocky / barrel extension.

What the hell kind of bbs are those?

[k_h]

Try Shwell's sponging method.

x2

[L a R i A t]

That fluted barrel and muzzle brake are gorgeous pieces of flare! I've wanted to get both of those for so long, but I need the functionality of my mocky / barrel extension.

What the hell kind of bbs are those?

Those are some ancient straights that I got very, very long ago. You can see how old the mag's are too. I decided that I'd use those straights up, and I own many 96's now and have acquired many mag's, which have been used quite a lot.

[ryanm]

And you haven't washed the graphite off yet? 

ryanm

[The Crimson Falcon]

Digicam isn't generally my favorite.  It's one of the harder ones to do well, especially if you want your camo to actually work well.  I'd grab some foliage from your skirmish site and use that for your stencils.

Tan, gray/green or sage, dark brown, black, gray, and maybe some other colors depending on your area.  Here's one of my older desert jobs, although I usually do woodland.