Nobby Clarke

This is a great photo, but it’s very difficult to invoke colors from a black and white image like this. Case in point is the color of the inside of the undercarriage door on the far right. This almost looks to be a reflective color like aluminum. Thanks for adding this photo to the thread.

Thank you @Jon Kunac-Tabinor for your reply. Of course, this begs the next question "how does the profile artist determine the recommended colour matches?" But, I fear I'm already way down the rabbit hole here.

Even the January 2022 edition of SAM references Dark Earth to Vallejo 71.029. My question for @Jon Kunac-Tabinor was whether SAM is using a different cross-reference guide than the one published by Vallejo and downloadable from their website titled "Historical Color References Guide for Aircraft and AFV Series". I am assuming that the staff at SAM have determined that the published Vallejo cross-references are not always the closest to the original colours.

Jon, I have always been curious about the Vallejo paint matches in SAM. How are they determined? For example, SAM usually quotes Vallejo 71.029 Dark Earth for WWII RAF aircraft instead of the more obvious 71.323 BS Dark Earth. Vallejo even includes 71.323 in their boxed paint sets for early WWII RAF colours in lieu of 71.029. I'm not challenging the accuracy of the SAM colour match, I'm just enquiring why the choice of 029 over 323. There are probably more differences between the SAM recommendations vs. what Vallejo publishes in their "Historical Color References Guide for Aircraft and AFV Series" document. Please enlighten us. Nobby

Graham, I’m not sure I understand your comment about the Colourcharts website. Are you referring to Jamie’s Colourcoats site or some other site?

Although it doesn't explain why BS285 and BS241 are so close, the following document written by Clive Elliott contains a lot of very interesting historical information on British Army dark greens including BS285 which was created for the British version of NATO Green with Infra Red Reflecting (IRR) properties. Its well worth the read. http://www.warwheels.net/images/BritishArmyGreenPaintsElliott1.pdf

Most instructive. Thanks Jamie

There has been a lot of interesting discussion in this thread about Dark Green, but frankly I have more of a challenge with creating acceptable Dark Earth. I would really like to get a hue that resembles the DE in the colour photo of the Spitfire from LIFE magazine that @Troy Smith pasted in his post above. Does anybody have a paint good choice for Dark Earth with the yellow/orange tint which this photo exhibits?

Has anybody tried AK Real Colors? They spray very nicely and settle to a smooth coat. I liked their Dark Earth and Sky, but guess what, their Dark Green (BS 241) is too bright and too olive, but not as bad as the MiG AMMO acrylic paint that @Tour de Airfix showed us earlier. Hmm, seems like a common theme. I’m planning to add a drop or two of a darker green shade to bring it back to the RAF Museum hue.

There's another program by Sensuallogic called PaintMaker where you can create mixes for a target sRGB color using Createx Illustrator airbrush colors. Note you must use the Illustrator colors not the normal range of Createx Airbrush or Wicked colors available at hobby stores like Hobby Lobby. https://sensuallogic.com/paintmaker

I agree that @Phantome has created an excellent resource for model colours, but with the exception of stating a preference for Gunze, a mention that Tamiya XF-81 has changed hue over the years and a discussion of the three Humbrol Dark Greens he does not provide any insight into the accuracy of the other DG’s mentioned in his table of paint colours. This is perhaps a very tall order for a one stop web page; when would he ever be done writing it? Which brings me back to my previous point that discussion threads like this one in BM are a wonderful resource for modelers to share their experiences and preferences. I’m still waiting to find the optimum set of air brushable acrylics for RAF Temperate Land Scheme. Thanks to everyone who is sharing their info and photos - keep them coming!

I'm not sure that we need another set of swatches, although I wouldn't say "no" if @Jamie @SovereignHobbies decided to publish such a thing. The "go to" reference for WW2 colour swatches is generally accepted to be the pull out colour card in the back of the RAF Museum (RAFM) book by John Tanner "British Aviation Colours of World War Two". The discussion in this thread is a question of accuracy of the commercially available model paint ranges. Which range of model paints provide the best matches to the RAFM colour card? I hear that @SovereignHobbies enamel paints are excellent, but I'm an acrylic user so I would really like to hear from fellow BM modellers which acrylic paint ranges you believe provide the most accurate matches.

Right. 70.893 is not that close. For Vallejo Model Colors try: 70.892 Yellow Oliva FS34083 RAL 6008, or 70.894 Olive Green/RLM 80 they are both much closer.

The referenced thread discusses some other acrylic choices for RAF Dark Green. You may find a useful alternative in there. The quote from N. Millman indicates that the BS 381C 241 Dark Green is slightly lighter (and less saturated) than the MAP/RAF shade. Since the MIG paint is labeled “Dark Green (BS 241)” this may be the reason why the MIG colour is too light.