News from the Balkans, via Soldier Systems: After several years that saw some unusual digitally-designed camouflage schemes getting publicity as ‘the next new Serbian pattern’ (see examples below), the real-deal is now on show.
From the small, publicly available pictures I’ve seen, the new pattern seems to combine a Multicam style blurred/hard-edged background pattern of three shades (olive green, grey-green and light khaki) with sharper edged, fractal type shapes in rust brown and black.
My ICUS colleague Jon has launched a website for his new business ‘Better Camo’ whose stated aim is to
“achieve superior concealment through the use of large, environmental texture and color based, digitally designed camouflage patterns”
With two or three different textures on display, and having observed and absorbed the lessons learned by trailblazing companies like Hyde Definition, Better Camo looks set to add its distinctive look to the digital camouflage revolution.
You can check out the patterns yourself, and follow Jon’s blog or his twitter posts here: http://www.bettercamo.com/
We will be following their progress with interest and wish them every success for the future!
Hyde Definition, the digital camouflage and concealment company I run, has finally finished revamping its website. Well actually, not quite, as there are still one or two things that need adding and tidying, but to all intents and purposes it is done. Come on over and take a look!
Okay, I guess I have to apologise for not having many photos from this year’s IWA. What can I say? When I wasn’t walking from one appointment to another, I was waiting to see people, and when I was free to take photos… well let’s just say I need some practice with my new phone to get half way decent pictures from it!
One thing I tried to get a record of was some of the new ‘forest’ coloured Optifade deer-hunting camo from Sitka. This is the first time I’d seen it in the flesh, and one or two hunting sports retailers had it on their stands. You can judge for yourself in this photo, but to my mind the balance of that colour palette just looks wrong for sitting in a tree-stand.
I will be attending this year’s Internationale Waffen Ausstellung (IWA) – an annual trade-show for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry taking place in Nuremberg, Germany, from the 12th to the 15th of March 2010.
IWA is the second largest trade-show of its type, after SHOT in the United States.
I will be visiting companies in the outdoor clothing sector to promote Hyde Definition’s innovative PenCott Multi-Environment Camouflage™ and to reveal additional new colour-ways addressing arid, mountain, urban, snow and low-light operational needs.
This show is a fantastic chance to show the industry what we’ve been developing, but I’ve got a lot of leg work to do – the venue is huge and I’m meeting companies from one end to the other across the weekend!
If you would like to meet with me at the show to discuss the exciting opportunities offered by Hyde Definition’s ground-breaking concealment solutions, give me a call on +44 208 123 0302 or +44 7764842047, or email me at dom@hydedefinition.com
9 of the available PenCott colour-ways
It appears that German military clothing and equipment manufacturers Tacgear have a new flecktarn colourway up their sleeve. The company made a splash a couple of years ago with their snow camouflage, based on the the drawings or printing screens used for the Danish army 3 colour woodland camouflage (‘M84’). Now they have quietly announced
a new “flecktarn” camouflage pattern which was developed for the today’s mission scenarios of the armed forces
Only one picture on their site, and that’s a small one, but it looks like they’ve used a Multicam-like palette (a colour scheme that’s bound to increase in popularity now that both the US and British armies have adopted it for their Afghan adventures). Maybe there will be more evidence at this year’s IWA and outdoor classics show in 2 weeks time.
Pic courtesy of ITS
Bryan, over at the ITS blog, is making an appeal to all readers with an interest in seeing Converse’s iconic Chuck Taylor All-Star high-top basketball shoes become available in a tacti-cool olive colour. What would make him want to do that? Click on over to his gig and find out!
Interesting news from Canada this week – a sole-source tender has been announced for the development of an experimental urban camouflage (CUEPAT – Canadian Urban Environment Pattern) based on the metropolitan environments of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The tender makes mention of CBR (chemical, biological and radiological protection) in one sentence, though there is no indication as to whether this prototype camouflage is being developed solely for use on CBR clothing.
Urban environments are notoriously difficult to design effective human personnel camouflage for, as not only is the vertically oriented, rounded, organic shape of a person out of place amongst the hard edges, flat planes and bulky volumes of the man-made environment, but there also is no such thing as a typical urban colour scheme. Any number of greys, browns, creams and greens will be found in the typical city, not to mention all the hues of the spectrum that appear on advertising space, doors, façades and shop fronts, cars, trucks and buses – you name it.
My prediction is that without some pretty clever thinking by the design team, the outcome of this program will be a FAIL for effective camouflage, but a WIN for Army fashionistas and the B.S. brigade, just like UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern) was for the US Army.
The sole-source tender is effectively a no-bid offer to Guy Cramer and Tim O’Neill of Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corporation, stating as it does that there are
no alternative sources of supply for this
requirement as no other Canadian source exists that has the
capability to design and develop digital, non-repeating
camouflage patterns using state-of-the-art fractal algorithms
and feed back loop technology, with concomitant IP protected
access to approximately 8,000 copyrighted patterns that can be
used in full support of meeting the requirement.
Although the terms of the tender allow competing companies to submit a bid, that bid must contain at least 80% goods and/or services of Canadian origin, and be submitted in writing before November 6th. Few, if any, of the other players in the digital camouflage industry are placed to take advantage of such a tightly constrained offer, meaning that however ineffective the design(s) submitted by Hyperstealth might be, the Canadian government will have no choice but to accept them.
There’s more on this story at Soldier Systems, and you can read the original tender as a pdf via this link.
Megan Fox was at the premiere of this summer’s expected big box-office blockbuster, Transformers 2, in Berlin recently. Here’s how she could have looked if that dress was made with PenCott camouflage material…
Anyone who got to see the Camouflage exhibition at the Imperial War Museum a couple of years ago will appreciate what a treat is in store for those able to make it to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa this summer. The IWM exhibition has travelled across the pond, and is set to inform and inspire new audiences young and old with its immersive display of concealment techniques, from their hand painted origins in the First World War through to the ultra-modern trend for uniforms designed and manufactured with the aid of sophisticated computer programs.
fashion meets function at the Canadian War Museum's camo exhibition
Follow the link to see more about Camouflage, the exhibition – from battlefield to catwalk.
Unfortunately the exhibition has no examples of the PenCott digital multi-environment camouflage, since the pattern was still being trialled when the Imperial War Museum originally presented the show. However, the two British camoufleurs who inspired Hyde Definition’s creative approach to the design of PenCott feature prominently in the Second World War gallery – Professor Hugh Cott, scientist; and artist Sir Roland Penrose. They offered solutions to the problem of concealment from two sources – that of zoological evolution and of visual psychology. At Hyde Definition we combined these points of view, and thus named the pattern in memory of Penrose and Cott: PenCott.
Camouflage is presented by the Canadian War Museum in partnership with the Imperial War Museum, from June 4, 2009 to January 3, 2010.
The Camo Side of Dominic Hyde 