FMII eBook: Advanced Techniques, Simply Explained

FIELD MANUAL II

Field Manual II is the natural progression from Field Manual I.

The techniques are more advanced, the processes are more detailed and the decisions become more deliberate — but the aim remains exactly the same: to explain everything as clearly and accessibly as possible.

Advanced does not have to mean complicated.

Across four substantial chapters, Field Manual II looks at Verdaccio Faces, Pea Dot Camouflage, Field Grey Cloth and US Olive Drab Heavy Cotton — including three uniform subjects that I know will be particularly popular with figure painters. The chapters focus not simply on colour recipes, but on how cloth behaves, how light changes across different materials, how wear affects the finished appearance, and how to decide what a figure actually needs at each stage. 

FMII contains around 50% more material than FMI, but the additional content is there to make the processes easier to understand, not to make them feel more complicated.

The photography has also moved forward considerably. There are more step-by-step images, more useful viewing angles and more emphasis on showing the changes that actually matter from one stage to the next. The intention is not to replace the strengths of FMI, but to make the visual teaching in FMII even clearer.

Most importantly, the narrative is written to feel as though we are working through the figure together at the bench.