Uniform portraits
A military portrait, painted from the photographs
A uniform portrait, where the ribbons, the rank and the badges will be checked by people who know exactly what they should look like.
A uniform portrait has an audience the subject cannot control: colleagues, a sergeant, a parent who served in the same branch. They will not admire the brushwork. They will check the ribbon order, the rank insignia, the name tape, and whether the badge sits where it should. That is not pedantry — a uniform is a document, and a portrait that gets the document wrong is a portrait of somebody in fancy dress.
The photographic problem follows from that. A full-length photograph in service dress, taken at a presentation, gives us the pose and the light and almost no detail: the ribbons are a coloured smudge, the badge is a shape, the buttons are highlights. So we ask for close-ups — ribbon rack, shoulder, collar, cuff, cap — taken with a phone in daylight. It is five minutes of work and it is the difference between a portrait and a guess.
Ribbons have an order, and people know it
Ribbons are worn in order of precedence, and that order is neither alphabetical nor chronological. Each service keeps its own list and the list changes over time. A painter who arranges ribbons by colour, or by what looks balanced, produces something any serving member spots instantly and nobody else notices at all. We paint them in the order you give us, left to right, top row first.
Medals follow the same logic. A mounted group has a fixed sequence, the suspender bars are a particular shape, and the ribbon on a full-size medal is wider than on a ribbon bar. If medals are in the portrait, send a photograph of the group laid flat, straight on, with a coin or a ruler for scale. If the medals are in a drawer somewhere, a written list in order is workable. A guess is not.
Beyond the ribbons: branch and name tapes are embroidered rather than printed, so the letters carry a slight relief; rank insignia differ in shape between services and between officers and enlisted personnel; collar dogs, cuff buttons, the way a tie sits under a tunic. We ask for a close-up of each instead of painting a general idea of a soldier, because the general idea is exactly what the family will see first.
Camouflage is not a pattern of blobs
Modern camouflage is the hardest uniform to paint well, because the temptation is to reproduce the pattern. Every blotch painted individually gives a busy, flat surface that reads as printed fabric from across a room and as noise up close, and it competes with the face. What works is the value structure: the uniform as a whole sits in a narrow band of muted green and brown, and a few representative shapes carry the pattern at the scale the eye actually sees it.
Older uniforms bring the opposite problem. Olive drab, khaki drill, air-force blue — flat colours that photograph as almost nothing, so a painting of a man in a 1944 uniform can look like a painting of a man in a grey suit if the fabric is not described. The weave, the way a tunic pulls across the shoulder, the crease, the sweat mark: cloth is what stops a plain uniform reading as cardboard.
Which photograph, which rank, which uniform
Then there is the question nobody asks early enough: which version of the person? A photograph from 1975 may show a rank held for two years and a uniform the subject never liked. A retirement portrait usually wants the rank at retirement; a memorial portrait often wants the photograph the family loves, whatever the rank in it. We will ask, and then paint what you choose rather than what looks most impressive on a wall.
Photographs from the 1940s are often small, sepia and slightly soft, and uniform detail is the first thing to go. Those are restored first at $60–$70 and you approve the restoration. Where a badge is a grey smudge in every frame we will say so: a 12 × 16 in canvas can carry a suggestion of insignia, but at 24 × 36 in it has to be right, and right needs a reference.
What it costs
Price is set by canvas size and the number of subjects — not by the occasion, the deadline, or how much detail you ask for. The table below is the same one used on every painting page, so there is no quote to wait for.
| Canvas | Metric | 1 subject | 2 subjects | 3 subjects | 4+ subjects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | 20 × 25 cm | $189 | $259 | — | — |
| 12 × 16 in | 30 × 41 cm | $289 | $379 | $459 | — |
| 16 × 20 in | 41 × 51 cm | $389 | $499 | $619 | $749 |
| 20 × 24 in | 51 × 61 cm | $549 | $699 | $849 | $1,029 |
| 24 × 36 in | 61 × 91 cm | $789 | $1,059 | $1,290 | $1,560 |
| 30 × 40 in | 76 × 102 cm | $1,090 | $1,449 | $1,749 | $2,090 |
| 36 × 48 in | 91 × 122 cm | $1,390 | $1,849 | $2,249 | $2,690 |
Shipping is free worldwide. Framing is optional and quoted separately — most customers have the canvas stretched by a local framer for $60–$120.
How it works
Send the photograph
One sharp phone photo is enough. Tell us the deadline, the wall it is going on, and anything that must or must not be in the picture.
See the mock-up within 24 hours
A digital composite at the exact canvas size and crop, so size and composition are settled before any paint is bought. Nothing is charged until you approve it.
Watch it being painted
Three to five weeks in real oil, with two progress photographs. You can raise a concern at either one — that is what they are for.
Approve, then it ships
You see the finished canvas first, with one free round of adjustments. Then it travels rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured, with the numbered certificate inside.
Real oil, not a print
Hand-painted on cotton canvas, varnished, signed. Brushwork you can see in raking light.
You approve before we paint
A digital mock-up at the exact size and crop, within 24 hours, included in the price.
Numbered certificate
Every painting ships with a signed COA stating artist, medium, size and year.
Free worldwide shipping
Rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured. No minimum, no distance surcharge.
Questions
Questions we actually get
$189 for 8 × 10 in, $289 for 12 × 16 in, $389 for the 16 × 20 in most people choose, up to $1,390 at 36 × 48 in for a full-length figure. A second person in the same painting is a second subject. Shipping is free worldwide, including to overseas addresses, and the certificate travels with the canvas.
Often yes, at 12 × 16 in or below. Send a 600 dpi scan rather than a phone copy, and we will tell you how much uniform detail the print can actually support. Restoration is $60–$70 and happens before painting, and you approve it. Where insignia were never legible, we do not invent them — a soft suggestion beats a sharp guess, and a creased print can still be read.
Yes, if you tell us the correct order or send a list. We will not reorder ribbons on our own judgement, because precedence differs by service and by date. The same applies to medals: send the group laid flat or a written sequence, and we paint exactly that. A five-minute list from somebody who served saves an argument later.
Only if you send a photograph of the actual medals, or a clear list with the group photographed separately. A medal is a specific object with a specific ribbon, and painting one from a description produces something that looks right at a glance and wrong to anybody who was there. A photograph of the group laid out settles it in thirty seconds.
Three to five weeks of painting plus three to five business days in transit, so six weeks from approval. Rush delivery is three weeks including painting for $90. Retirement dates are fixed, so tell us the date at the start and we will confirm in writing whether we can hold it — and if we cannot, we will say so on the first day rather than three weeks later.
Send the photographs and the details
One full-length frame plus close-ups of the ribbons, rank and badges. We will confirm what is legible and what we would need before quoting.