Private Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence

IMG_5547 In the first part of the movie Full Metal Jacket, the recruits graduate and receive their Military Occupational Specialty assignments.  Pyle is assigned to Infantry. During the platoon’s final night on Parris Island, Joker discovers Pyle in the head loading his rifle and executing drill commands, and loudly recites the Rifleman’s Creed. This awakens the platoon and drill sergeant Hartman, who confronts Pyle and orders him to surrender the rifle. Pyle shoots Hartman dead and then commits suicide, while Joker helplessly watches in horror. The figure above is an Empress miniature cast for a different story line. Empress assume Pyle doesn’t shoot Hartman and doesn’t commit suicide and in doing so reaches the NAM as an M60 gunner.

Pyle was played by Vincent D’Onofrio.  D’Onofrio heard of the auditions for the film from Modine. Using a rented video camera and dressed in army fatigues, D’Onofrio recorded his audition. Despite Kubrick’s saying that Pyle was “the hardest part to cast in the whole movie”, he quickly responded to D’Onofrio, telling the actor that he had won the part.D’Onofrio was required to gain 70 pounds (32 kg).



In “full metal jacket” Dorian Harewood plays Eightball a member of Jokers squad and Animal Mother’s closest friend. A sniper shoots him repeatedly in an attempt to lure the others into the open, before killing him.

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Here he is as a miniature from Empress miniature :



Animal Mother




Sergeant J.T. “Joker” Davis

Today it is “Jokers” time a main character of the movie full metal jacket played by Matthew Modine. Private/Sergeant J. T. “Joker” Davis is a wise-cracking young recruit and later Sergeant and squad leader.


While patrolling Huế, Crazy Earl, the squad leader, is killed by a booby trap, leaving Cowboy in command. The squad becomes lost, and Cowboy orders Eightball to scout the area. A Viet Cong sniper wounds Eightball and Doc Jay, the squad Corpsman. Believing that the sniper is drawing the squad into an ambush, Cowboy attempts to radio in tank support to no avail. The squad’s machine gunner, Animal Mother, disobeys Cowboy’s orders to retreat and attempts to save his comrades.

Full Metal Jacket


Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed, co-written, and produced by Stanley Kubrick and starring Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D’Onofrio and Adam Baldwin. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford’s novel The Short-Timers (1979). The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp training in Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, primarily focusing on two privates, Joker and Pyle, who struggle under their abusive drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and the experiences of two of the platoon’s Marines in Vietnamese cities of Da Nang and Huế during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War.[5] The film’s title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by military servicemen. The film was released in the United States on June 26, 1987 ( Wikipedia).

Empress Miniatures released a set of special character miniatures in their Vietnam War range based on the main characters of the movie. Sculpted by Paul Hicks. Here is the first miniature of the set I painted Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: