Jump to content

Colors for F-104G marineflieger


toniosky

Recommended Posts

 Hi,
 
What would be the best Tamiya paint references or mixes for a Marineflieger F-104G in the 2 tones camo (RAL9006 Weißaluminium and RAL7012 Basaltgrau) ?

For the white alu, it seems that the color oxidised quite easily into some kind of light grey so I guess any reference will do. For basalt grey, XF-66 seems to be a good start. What do you think ?


Cheers,


Antoine

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, toniosky,

 

I do not use Tamiya paints, except for some details. That said:

 

RAL7012 can be effectively mimicked by any FS36118, so Tamiya XF-50, -24 or similar, would do. Weissaluminium I have always made a mixture of Aluminium plus any light grey. XF-66 Hellgrau looks a bit light.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Fernando

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to the two of you for your suggestions.

 

Fernando,

Now having the FS number will realy help.

I agree that the -66 looks a bit light and I prefer XF-50.

 

XF-66

Tamiya%20Light%20Grey%20XF-66.jpg

 

XF-50

Tamiya%20Field%20Blue%20XF-50.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Antoine,

 

I went through the same puzzle a few months back on my Starfighter and I wasn't able to mix a suitable colour from Tamiya acrylics despite much trying, the top colour RAL7012 is very tricky to replicate imho! I tried maybe 20+ mixtures of 5-6 different Tamiya greys and still was not entirely convinced, though I am not very good at colour matching my own paints I must admit.

 

Instead I tried to match to the Xtracolor enamel RAL7012 colour, which is a decent representation. The closest I could get was not with Tamiya but with Gunze acrylic H69 mixed with maybe 5-10% Gunze light blue. The difference between the Xtracolor and this mix was minimal but still not 100%. Unfortunately I binned my tests so I cannot show you the result. However, in my opinion the Xtracolour is still too light, but has the correct hue, so maybe circa 90% H69, 5% light blue, 5% dark grey or black using acrylics. Something along those lines can get very close I think.

 

Humbrol 89 (enamel and water based acrylic) mixed with white is also a good representation, mostly it looks grey but in some lighting it has a blue hue that can be seen in photographs. I show the pictures below to back up my claim:

 

It looks more grey here:

 

L1110455%202_zpsikmywcit.jpg

 

 

Then in different lighting, a noticeable blue hue,

 

L1110693_zpsmx5uhb5u.jpg

 

 

If I'm honest I did try XF-50 in various mixes but it always came out too dark and blue when applied over a scale model for me. If you use Gunze H69 as a base and mix in XF-50 this also  becomes a reasonable match IIRC. There are probably a few paths to get the colour, but depending on how obsessive you are, many different shades of a dark grey would do, after weathering etc...these further change the colours a little bit also so it is not necessary to be absolutely exact.

 

Revell also have matches in enamel and Aqua ranges, number '77', I tired both but they don't look right to me. Revell '378' is closer but again not perfect either. You would have thought Revell of all paint manufactures would be near perfect!

 

 

I agree XF-66 is too light also.

 

 

For the undersides find the finest pigment silver/aluminium you can and simply mix some light grey and maybe white in it. It is best to look too metallic and bright initially when sprayed as after weathering/varnish layers this will then turn into a light grey with a small metallic/silver tone. I can recommend mixing Alclad White Aluminium with gloss light grey and white from Gunze or Tamiya.

 

The above model looks like simply a light grey but the paint when applied actually looked like this:

 

L1100588_zpse156zpjy.jpg

 

Much more metallic before the weathering etc..it will tone down and you can even spray some very thin light grey mixture over the top if you still think it is too metallic.

 

Having just gone through the same headache trying to get these colours I hope this is of some use to you as your model so far looks amazing and deserves nice colours! :)

 

 If you stick with Tamiya paints I would love to know which ones you used as I much prefer to use acrylics too. 

 

Cheers,

 

David.

 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please forgive this incredibly unscientific exercise.:D

Taken under a ‘Daylight’ LED lamp with my mobile phone.

RAL chip is out of a RAL colour fan set.

WP_20170529_11_28_28_Pro.jpg

WP_20170529_11_40_18_Pro.jpg

Even with a poor quality camera the Tamiya should show as being a bit too dark, but is reasonably close if you were to lighten it a tad. To me the Revell looks fairly close, perhaps even ‘scale effect’?

 

Mart

Edited by LotusArenco
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you David for your comprehensive answer. You seem to have studied the subject carefully and yet you didn't find the perfect mix, that makes it quite a challenge for me ! I am not a perfectionist when it comes to color matching, especially when one considers the weathering steps that alter the initial color, and also lightning, so I am not going to be too anal about it ;)

I will experiment with your suggestion of XF-50 + RLM75, I got a good feeling, and let you know if I am happy about it

 

For the underside, I planned to do as you said: white aluminum followed by a very light coat of light grey.

 

 

Mart,

 

Your "unscientific exercise" is actually fairly useful and confirms that adding some light grey like H-69 to XF-50 might give good results. Cheers !

 

Antoine

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, toniosky said:

For the underside, I planned to do as you said: white aluminum followed by a very light coat of light grey.

Hi, toniosky,

 

If I have not misunderstood something, he referred to "aluminum MIXED with light grey".

 

Basaltgrau photographs more or less bluish according to the light, the weathering, and I guess the paint batch. Corresponding Xtracolour paint, for instance, is a very definite blue gray, which I do not like, finding it too blue and light. In models of Bundesluftwaffe machines from the era I have made, beside RAL6003 Olivegrün, it looks wrong, while FS36118 (I use Xtracrylixs) shows that elusive slightly bluish shade contrasting the olive green. I have built a couple of Marine Tornadoes, and it also looks satisfying. As David says, you needn't be so, so exact with the shade.

 

FErnando

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Fernando,

 

I'll use light gray over aluminum to make it less shiny. In some pictures , you can see that the shine disappeared and that the underside actually looks like light gray.

 

Thank you for your suggestion of using Xtracrylics but I am not a fan of this brand. Although the pigments are very fine and the color range pretty convincing, I don't like working with it as it clogs the A/B tip too frequently.

 

tonio

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, toniosky said:

Thank you David for your comprehensive answer. You seem to have studied the subject carefully and yet you didn't find the perfect mix, that makes it quite a challenge for me ! I am not a perfectionist when it comes to color matching, especially when one considers the weathering steps that alter the initial color, and also lightning, so I am not going to be too anal about it ;)

I will experiment with your suggestion of XF-50 + RLM75, I got a good feeling, and let you know if I am happy about it

 

For the underside, I planned to do as you said: white aluminum followed by a very light coat of light grey.

 

 

Mart,

 

Your "unscientific exercise" is actually fairly useful and confirms that adding some light grey like H-69 to XF-50 might give good results. Cheers !

 

Antoine

 

No problem Antoine, hopefully I have not confused things further! I confess to being very obsessive about this colour! ^_^ Yet I still cannot find the exact model paint. As you say, I think we should all do what looks correct to our eye as it is that which is most important. I still work with the mentality of 'close enough' and anything I said are only my opinion and not fact for sure. I have researched on a few German modelling forums about it and have seen it referenced as the 'Devil's colour' due to how much it changes in photographs. 

 

I have a RAL 7012 chip too, where the colour Revell 77 compares quite well as above, but when applied on a scale model it just didn't look right, much too dark and no blue hue at all.

 

XF50+RLM75 should be quite close though so hopefully you will be fine with this sort of mixture.

 

I found this F-104 build also (scroll down): http://bowemodels.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/  where to my eyes the Basaltgrau looks ok, a 50/50 mix of Tamiya XF-53/XF-24. I tried it but it didn't look so correct in real life, maybe though it might be another option if only using Tamiya paint. 

 

6 hours ago, Fernando said:

Hi, toniosky,

 

If I have not misunderstood something, he referred to "aluminum MIXED with light grey".

 

Basaltgrau photographs more or less bluish according to the light, the weathering, and I guess the paint batch. Corresponding Xtracolour paint, for instance, is a very definite blue gray, which I do not like, finding it too blue and light. In models of Bundesluftwaffe machines from the era I have made, beside RAL6003 Olivegrün, it looks wrong, while FS36118 (I use Xtracrylixs) shows that elusive slightly bluish shade contrasting the olive green. I have built a couple of Marine Tornadoes, and it also looks satisfying. As David says, you needn't be so, so exact with the shade.

 

FErnando

 

I agree that (depending on the tinlet consistency) the Xtracolour version is definitely too light but the blue seems to only be present in certain lighting from my tests (and eyes!). Also I agree it can look wrong when placed next to other colours like in a Norm 72 scheme. In fact one mixture for RAL 7012 for a Marineflieger Starfighter may look just fine, then if you put it beside RAL6014 Gelboliv it can look much too blue, light and wrong! :doh: I remember reading your Bundesluftwaffe topics while researching (fantastic builds btw!) and trying out Gunze and Humbrol FS36118, both though (especially Gunze) did not look right. So another important point is that the manufactures' interpretation of a fixed colour can vary wildly, but I agree in the Xtracrylix FS36118 version is a good approximation certainly. 

 

David

 

 

edit. There is also a Mr.Paint version, but I have not tried it.

 

 

Edited by mirageiv
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/29/2017 at 11:53 AM, LotusArenco said:

Please forgive this incredibly unscientific exercise.:D

Taken under a ‘Daylight’ LED lamp with my mobile phone.

RAL chip is out of a RAL colour fan set.

WP_20170529_11_28_28_Pro.jpg

WP_20170529_11_40_18_Pro.jpg

Even with a poor quality camera the Tamiya should show as being a bit too dark, but is reasonably close if you were to lighten it a tad. To me the Revell looks fairly close, perhaps even ‘scale effect’?

 

Mart

 

 

The Revell colour I found is funny, it looks ok when in the tin/label but from my own experience (others may vary!) after applied and clear varnish it darkened significantly and never lightened back up with matt varnish. So I then lightened the Revell base colour in expectation of it darkening with gloss, however this then changed the hue so the final colour didn't look right either! :hmmm: Hopefully people have got better luck with it than me! 

 

David. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...