Enterprise Colour

[Luke Piewalker]

Hi Chaps, my first foray into the world of Sci-Fi modellage.

I have acquired a Revell Enterprise, and had a flick through the instructions and was somewhat dismayed to see that the main paint colour is one of their 'classic' mixtures (60% light grey, 30% white, 10% silver off the top of my head). I have yet to have any luck whatsoever with mixing one of these revell colours, and would be concerned with mixing the right amount and whether I could 'match' it if I ran out.

So, is there 'single' colour reckoned to be the one?

Or a way of layering to get the required effect? (paint it silver then grey over the top?)

Not looking forward to it, I have a long history of unsatisfactory results with white and light grey...

I'll be primering with tamiya light grey.

[Cimmerian]

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/what-color-is-the-tos-enterprise/

Be sure to Check out hobbytalk's sci fi section for extensive discussions on the topic!

Also - modelman tom recently reviewed the 1:350 TOS E on his youtube channel - and I think he gets a shot of the colour callouts on the box. These are modelmaster colours though.

Hope this helps!

[Chablar]

I would say the best bet would be to mix your colour. I recently painted the Enterprise E by hand, and the base colour was a sort of creamy white (from the Nemesis version) that I found almost impossible to find. The main problem like you said is running out, but I would say the risk of that is better than painting the entire ship the wrong colour. The link Cimmerian gave couldn't be better for a guide

[Luke Piewalker]

I'll just have to give the mixing a bash then... I suppose if I end up with a couple of subtly different shades on the model it'll give it some 'depth'

[JMChladek]

I've been trying to come up with a decent shade myself because I don't like mixing either. In my experience, mixing two colors is fine. But when it gets to a "witches brew" formula involving three or more colors, trying to duplicate the mix exactly becomes problematic since if the color is off, you don't quite know exactly HOW it is off. With a two color mix, just mix more of one color if it looks off until you get what you want.

Now with that proviso, be aware that the coloring of the TOS USS Enterprise has been one of the more hotly debated topics of the past few decades and it is coming to the front again with Round 2 issuing the 1/350 kit here in the coming months. There are multiple schools of thought and interpretations. Do you paint it like you see it on television, or do you go for a studio model look? Duplicating the studio model look can net some weird looking results since the model isn't sitting under bright stage lights for an effects pass. It is a lot like looking at an actor behind the scenes with makeup applied. It may look strange if you aren't seeing him under the proper lighting. Then there is also the fact that a 19" long model is going to react to light a little differently than the original 11 foot long model. So a color that might be perfect for the 11 footer might look too dark for something only about a foot and a half long. I know, long winded answer, but I wanted to preface my paint color choice with that before I recommend it, since although it worked for me, it might not necessarily work for you exactly the same way.

Anyway, to make a long story short, when I did a replica of a trashed USS Constellation effects model last year from the episode "The Doomsday Machine" I went with Tamiya JN Grey XF-12 mixed with about 25 to 30% white. I have a color chip from a book written by Paul Newitt and he got Richard Datin (the original model builder of the 11 footer E) to match a chip he had of the original color to currently available spray paints, then he came up with formulas to match the best candidates (which his chip is based on). Newitt mentioned that JN Grey was spooky close, so I tried it straight initially and it looked too dark. Mixing it with the white toned it down somewhat, giving it a good "scale effect" as it were. I shot various mixes of XF-12 and white, some gloss coated, others flat coated (both shot over black and over white to see how they interact with nearby colors), on a sheet of styrene to give me a color chip chart to help fine tune the mix a bit until I settled on something I was happy with. So I painted the Constellation that way and liked the results.

Now I may or may not use that color when I get the 1/350 kit. Reason being is Gary Kerr, who was onhand when the 11 footer got refurbished for the Smithsonian was able to get some color chips off the actual model and he worked on a mountain of research and color tests to come up with the color recommendations for the upcoming round 2 kit (the model will be molded in the proper color and the box will have color samples of the other shades on the inside lid). He brought his color chips to Wonderfest and I compared them with my XF-12 shade. I found out that my color might be ever so slightly greener than his for the main shade, but funny enough it seemed to match the coloring of the accent areas on the bottom of the warp nacelles and the neck pylon almost exactly. JN Grey is greenish and the Enterprise studio model color has some weirdish blue/green properties in it, so it is certainly close enough for use IMHO, just not necessarily "exact". I'll do more research once I get a 1/350 kit in my hands because then I'll have something more substantial to compare with the paint racks at the local hobby shop.

Here are a couple images of my Constellation if you want to get a hint of how the color might look (taking into account that monitors can distort colors a little):

I've tried to select a sampling where things look a little different so you can sort of see how the color shifts a little depending on the lighting. But, the blue/greenish aspects of it should be somewhat clear enough.

[Devilfish]

I remember reading about the refurbishment of the studio model that is in the Smithsonian. It was mentioned that it was originally painted using an off the shelf Ford (iirc) colour. However, I don't remember which, so unfortunately no help to you.