Jump to content

Colour Scheme for HMS Formidable period early 1942


Exkiwiforces

Recommended Posts

Hi,

 

I see you've still got the old RNxxs so that could contribute to the confusion here! The illustrations in Raven's book are fairly good but I accept that some bits are a little artistic with shading so it's hard to tell what's supposed to be B6 and what's MS4A.

 

The old Colourcoats you have though are the Snyder & Short based ones. The now discontinued RN11 B6 is too light and is torquoise in hue. Meanwhile the RN13 was a bit too dark and very green.

 

The replacement NARN34 B6 is a medium blue-grey and NARN32 MS4A is a very light neutral grey.

 

Darkest to lightest:

Black-ish = MS1

Dark Blue = B5

Medium blue-grey = B6

Very light grey = MS4A

 

The scheme is a bit easier to recognise from the Raven book when the colours are adjusted to reality - many of Raven's illustrations were based on watercolours by an ex sailor named Dominie, who most all these ships first hand and had a good eye for colour.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The pattern on the starboard side may need some adjustment:

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205147389

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205144338

 

 

The flight deck certainly wasn't dark grey. It had a complicated multi-colour pattern at the time. I have an excellent clear photograph from directly above.  I assume it is composed of the same colours as the hull, but I have no primary evidence to support this hypothesis, other than comparison of black and white photos.  

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Hi,

 

I see you've still got the old RNxxs so that could contribute to the confusion here! The illustrations in Raven's book are fairly good but I accept that some bits are a little artistic with shading so it's hard to tell what's supposed to be B6 and what's MS4A.

 

The old Colourcoats you have though are the Snyder & Short based ones. The now discontinued RN11 B6 is too light and is torquoise in hue. Meanwhile the RN13 was a bit too dark and very green.

 

The replacement NARN34 B6 is a medium blue-grey and NARN32 MS4A is a very light neutral grey.

 

Darkest to lightest:

Black-ish = MS1

Dark Blue = B5

Medium blue-grey = B6

Very light grey = MS4A

 

The scheme is a bit easier to recognise from the Raven book when the colours are adjusted to reality - many of Raven's illustrations were based on watercolours by an ex sailor named Dominie, who most all these ships first hand and had a good eye for colour.

 

Cheers Jamie,

 

I have to use up all my old stock paints first IAW with the directions of the Ministry of Finance, before I buy any of the new range of paints.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, iang said:

The pattern on the starboard side may need some adjustment:

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205147389

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205144338

 

 

The flight deck certainly wasn't dark grey. It had a complicated multi-colour pattern at the time. I have an excellent clear photograph from directly above.  I assume it is composed of the same colours as the hull, but I have no primary evidence to support this hypothesis, other than comparison of black and white photos.  

Cheers, Ian

 

Would the flight be similar to the camouflage deck from the 1941? But I’m now  thinking I maybe thinking of a different carrier and I really can’t bothered going over the shed atm, as need to suit up tp MOPP4 as everything wants to me atm ah the joys of the Monsoon finally arriving.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Exkiwiforces said:

Cheers Jamie,

 

I have to use up all my old stock paints first IAW with the directions of the Ministry of Finance, before I buy any of the new range of paints.

 

I'm not sure if this helps, but you have quite a stash of the RNxx paints and I like you and want to help...

 

This isn't perfect, but having CIELAB coordinates helps a LOT, so without much time or effort I've made a mix of paints you probably already have:

 

To make a passable B6 using old Colourcoats RNxx paints*:

 

8 drops of RN11 B6

2 drops of corrected (i.e. blue, not grey) RN07 B5 - which I've seen in your photos

1 drop of RN19 anti-fouling red but any red should do the trick of cancelling out RN11's rogue green hue.

 

makes this - there's a little dab of it on the lid of our new NARN34 B6 pointed at using the paint stirring stick:

resized_1397baa8-6e51-474c-882d-97c2fa69

 

It could benefit from just the smallest dot of extra red, but the above was too small a batch size. One extra drop of red would (and indeed did) go way too far towards mauve. If you made maybe 5 times as much as I did then an extra drop of red would get it almost perfect I think.

 

If it's of interest, I'll figure out how to "fix" RN13 to a better rendition of MS4A as well.

 

 

 

 

*n.b. this probably wont work for other brands because it depends on exactly how much pigment each individual brand ended up using to get the first match - i.e. different paints within any given brand have different proportions if pigment to binder (it's within a certain window, but some pigments are very powerful), and the chances of two separate brands ending up with pigment proportions exactly the same is very slim - feel free to try it, but it's unlikely to land in the same place

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I'm not sure if this helps, but you have quite a stash of the RNxx paints and I like you and want to help...

 

This isn't perfect, but having CIELAB coordinates helps a LOT, so without much time or effort I've made a mix of paints you probably already have:

 

To make a passable B6 using old Colourcoats RNxx paints*:

 

8 drops of RN11 B6

2 drops of corrected (i.e. blue, not grey) RN07 B5 - which I've seen in your photos

1 drop of RN19 anti-fouling red but any red should do the trick of cancelling out RN11's rogue green hue.

 

makes this - there's a little dab of it on the lid of our new NARN34 B6 pointed at using the paint stirring stick:

resized_1397baa8-6e51-474c-882d-97c2fa69

 

It could benefit from just the smallest dot of extra red, but the above was too small a batch size. One extra drop of red would (and indeed did) go way too far towards mauve. If you made maybe 5 times as much as I did then an extra drop of red would get it almost perfect I think.

 

If it's of interest, I'll figure out how to "fix" RN13 to a better rendition of MS4A as well.

 

 

 

 

*n.b. this probably wont work for other brands because it depends on exactly how much pigment each individual brand ended up using to get the first match - i.e. different paints within any given brand have different proportions if pigment to binder (it's within a certain window, but some pigments are very powerful), and the chances of two separate brands ending up with pigment proportions exactly the same is very slim - feel free to try it, but it's unlikely to land in the same place

Jamie,

 

Mate you are a bloody legend with your solution, I only use your product now since I came across it a few yrs ago after starting back up again as  Humbrol and Tamyia are back up paints which hardly get use now expect for the base colours ie Matt back red yellow etc.

 

BZ mate,

 

EXF

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Exkiwiforces said:

Jamie,

 

Mate you are a bloody legend with your solution, I only use your product now since I came across it a few yrs ago after starting back up again as  Humbrol and Tamyia are back up paints which hardly get use now expect for the base colours ie Matt back red yellow etc.

 

BZ mate,

 

EXF

 

No worries - I'll try to come up with a simple solution for MS4A. It's going to need white - would you prefer to use C03 or RN10?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 13/01/2020 at 17:30, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

No worries - I'll try to come up with a simple solution for MS4A. It's going to need white - would you prefer to use C03 or RN10?

Thanks Jamie for your reply and the only white I have is available RN 10. I look forward to your reply and cheers again for your excellent customer service.

 

EXF

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Exkiwiforces said:

Thanks Jamie for your reply and the only white I have is available RN 10. I look forward to your reply and cheers again for your excellent customer service.

 

EXF

 

Ok great. The bad news is that to make it light enough, there might not end up being much RN13 in the final MS4A mix, but the good news is that RN Warm White didn't actually exist so RN10 can be put to good use making MS4A instead!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 13/01/2020 at 02:14, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I'm not sure if this helps, but you have quite a stash of the RNxx paints and I like you and want to help...

 

This isn't perfect, but having CIELAB coordinates helps a LOT, so without much time or effort I've made a mix of paints you probably already have:

 

To make a passable B6 using old Colourcoats RNxx paints*:

 

8 drops of RN11 B6

2 drops of corrected (i.e. blue, not grey) RN07 B5 - which I've seen in your photos

1 drop of RN19 anti-fouling red but any red should do the trick of cancelling out RN11's rogue green hue.

 

makes this - there's a little dab of it on the lid of our new NARN34 B6 pointed at using the paint stirring stick:

resized_1397baa8-6e51-474c-882d-97c2fa69

 

It could benefit from just the smallest dot of extra red, but the above was too small a batch size. One extra drop of red would (and indeed did) go way too far towards mauve. If you made maybe 5 times as much as I did then an extra drop of red would get it almost perfect I think.

 

If it's of interest, I'll figure out how to "fix" RN13 to a better rendition of MS4A as well.

 

 

 

 

*n.b. this probably wont work for other brands because it depends on exactly how much pigment each individual brand ended up using to get the first match - i.e. different paints within any given brand have different proportions if pigment to binder (it's within a certain window, but some pigments are very powerful), and the chances of two separate brands ending up with pigment proportions exactly the same is very slim - feel free to try it, but it's unlikely to land in the same place

Jamie, just wondering if have you came up with a solution IRT MS4A yet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Exkiwiforces said:

Jamie, just wondering if have you came up with a solution IRT MS4A yet?

 

I forgot entirely. I'll try to do it tomorrow in day light. It's dusk now so making colour mixes is a high risk strategy in the dark...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I forgot entirely. I'll try to do it tomorrow in day light. It's dusk now so making colour mixes is a high risk strategy in the dark...

No worries mate, I’ve got 2 DKM Z Class Destroyers to keep me occupied atm and if I knock them out quickly then I’ve another couple DKM ships as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/29/2020 at 11:23 AM, Exkiwiforces said:

Jamie, just wondering if have you came up with a solution IRT MS4A yet?

 

Hi,

 

Here is my suggestion for mixing a better MS4A using the Snyder & Short matched previous WEM era Colourcoats RN paints.

 

I used RN10 "RN Warm White", which didn't actually exist so it's good to have a purpose for this stuff, as well as RN12 "MS4 Warm Light Grey" and RN13 "MS4A Light-Grey Green"

 

resized_52fece2c-139d-4445-95e4-4e786842

 

The mix ratio was:

 

10 drops RN10

5 drops RN12

4 drops RN13

 

That results in the following approximation  to our new NARN32 MS4A which will give a better overall impression than using RN13 would. Apologies for the otherwise manky tin lid. This was left overs beyond the properly sprayed lids that I took for my own use - so the tin isn't even labelled besides with a marker pen!

 

resized_a9eaf4ef-094a-48a7-9c2e-69f83197

 

Hope this helps use up the old RNxx paints and also help result in models which better fit the photographs :)

 

If you accidently added 6 drops of RN12 rather than 5 that wouldn't be a disaster, but be careful with the RN13. The green is relatively powerful and has an alarming influence on the resultant colour.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 01/03/2020 at 22:05, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Hi,

 

Here is my suggestion for mixing a better MS4A using the Snyder & Short matched previous WEM era Colourcoats RN paints.

 

I used RN10 "RN Warm White", which didn't actually exist so it's good to have a purpose for this stuff, as well as RN12 "MS4 Warm Light Grey" and RN13 "MS4A Light-Grey Green"

 

resized_52fece2c-139d-4445-95e4-4e786842

 

The mix ratio was:

 

10 drops RN10

5 drops RN12

4 drops RN13

 

That results in the following approximation  to our new NARN32 MS4A which will give a better overall impression than using RN13 would. Apologies for the otherwise manky tin lid. This was left overs beyond the properly sprayed lids that I took for my own use - so the tin isn't even labelled besides with a marker pen!

 

resized_a9eaf4ef-094a-48a7-9c2e-69f83197

 

Hope this helps use up the old RNxx paints and also help result in models which better fit the photographs :)

 

If you accidently added 6 drops of RN12 rather than 5 that wouldn't be a disaster, but be careful with the RN13. The green is relatively powerful and has an alarming influence on the resultant colour.

BZ Jamie, you are a Legend mate.

 

I did my first mix this afternoon, started with superstructure and some smaller parts of the hull. I have this funny feeling that the paint maybe a tad too light?

  • Like 1
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...