Sand and Spinach

[TonyW]

Without wishing to roll a grenade into the room, I thought I would post a picture that pleases me on many levels. 

 

 

I'm a collector as well as a builder. My builds tend towards straight out the box but now and then I'll add a bit to the pudding. I've even been known to add photoetch on the odd occasion!

As well as collecting unbuilt kits, I'm not adverse to collecting built models as well. Over the years I've gathered quite a few built kits. I collect them as part of kit history, I'm fascinated by kit fashions and how the hobby has progressed over the years.

My builds follow this. I'll use what was available at the time when building. I'll mix my own colours when building very early kits right up to using current materials and ideas when building new stuff. Every now and then, something hits me hard and I change my attitude to refinishing.

 

A case in point is my current paint preference for finishing RAF WW2 types. The picture shows two Defiants, one finished in what was a near universal choice for many years, Humbrol 29 and 30. The kit was built by an unknown modeller years ago. I like it because it's a snapshot of a period in modelling history. It's well built and finished it what were the accepted 'right' colours for the time. 

 

 Sat next to it is a build of mine, same kit. straight out the box and finished in current Revell Aquacolour Dark Green and Dark Earth.

It's always going to be a subjective thing, but I think the new Revell colours knock spots off the old Humbrol paint. Not because one is more 'accurate' than the other, but because it just looks so right to me. The Humbrol paints I've used for donkeys years look very muddy next to the new stuff. I've even started refinishing some old models in the new paint as I like the look so much. It has also crossed my mind that there must be a whole load of other paint manufacturers colours out there that I've not yet tried.

 

I know most builders are aiming to finish their models as accurately as possible, but what makes you use one colour over another, and how do you decide if it's 'right' or not? 

 

Fight clean, no weapons. Break on the bell.

 

Tony.

 

 

[Graham Boak]

Buy a set of the colour charts.  Look for a 2nd hand copy of RAF Colours of WW2 from Arms&Armour Press/RAF Museum.  For enamel paints go for Colourcioats, Xtracolour or P hoenix Precision Paints, all of which are generally reliable.  There are more accurate colours buried in the Humbrol range (and history) but the older ones were general paints not specifically designed for matching aircraft colours accurately.    There are good acrylics and poor ones...  not my speciality but the more recent lacquer acrylics appear more reliable.

[Work In Progress]

Everything Graham said, plus it is worth knowing that a lot of Humbrol colours drifted a long way from their original colour specs over the years while retaining the same paint numbers

[TonyW]

7 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

Everything Graham said, plus it is worth knowing that a lot of Humbrol colours drifted a long way from their original colour specs over the years while retaining the same paint numbers

Tell me about it! I've got two or three different H30's in my stocks.

[Properjob56]

I research and as part of that I study Britmodeller like a hawk(other sites are available) and take note of suggestions by those vastly more knowledgeable than myself. So, eg, I no longer use Hu30 but Hu116. I'm still not wholly convinced as, while its 'greener', it doesn't have the olive hue that you see in some old colour photos.

In the past month I've found out on here that my Spitfire X should be PRU Blue and not PRU Pink as I have painted it. The research I did at the time (Jan this year) showed little and what there was incl the box top art showed Pink.So timing is important. 

I'm about to start painting an old Hasegawa Hellcat to reduce the stash. Hu15 was always the recommended paint but it doesn't capture the Midnight Blue of late and post war planes so I'm going to experiment with a suggested mix on here of 3 pts Hu15 and 1 part black.

I did a Defiant last month and the suggested mix for Night I found on here of equal parts black and Dark Earth works really well to my eyes.

At the moment I am exercised by EDSG. I have the recommended Humbrol shade, Hu123 from memory, but I also have an old Precision Paint tin of the same. The latter paints out with a distinct blue shade to it that the Humbrol doesnt have. So my work-around is, I'll be doing a Buccaneer with Precision, and probably a Phantom when I get one, as photos show the Precision hue is right for them and do late war and early post war in the Humbrol shade as I don't see that blue in contemporary photos.

And then there are those colours that you know what they look like. I'm thinking of eg RLM76 which I know is not grey! So I dont use Hu248 and instead Tamiya AS-5 which has, so far as I'm concerned, got it right

I realise I could go on...and on. so I'll just say I am coming back into the hobby after retirement as an assembler aspiring to be a modeller and I'm still rather stuck in my ways by using the hairy stick and Humbrol. However, I'm much more open now to using other manufacturers paint and am trying to move over to acrylic by replacing tins of enamel with their acrylic counterparts. Who knows I might break out the airbrush I was given years ago and try MRP paints.

[Paul Thompson]

52 minutes ago, Properjob56 said:

At the moment I am exercised by EDSG. I have the recommended Humbrol shade, Hu123 from memory, but I also have an old Precision Paint tin of the same. The latter paints out with a distinct blue shade to it that the Humbrol doesnt have. So my work-around is, I'll be doing a Buccaneer with Precision, and probably a Phantom when I get one, as photos show the Precision hue is right for them and do late war and early post war in the Humbrol shade as I don't see that blue in contemporary photos.

 

Do please bear in mind that the older the grey paint, the more you have to stir it to work the blue elements back into it. By which I mean (in the case of original Precision Paints) 10 minutes or more. It's just on my mind because I was recently going through some old greys from various manufacturers, including precision,and Humbrol Authentics, and while the Authentics eventually evened out nicely , the Precision (in this case Medium Sea Grey) remained a shade of blue I'm sure wasn't intended, because there was  still unamalgamated grey gunk in the bottom by the time I gave up.

 

Paul.

[Graham Boak]

The olive hue seen in some photos of RAF Dark Green is a sign of fading - although some of the paints used seem to have gone to a grassy green instead.  When new it isn't strongly  visible - it is an olive green but not very brown, then.  I remember how noticeable this was with a tin of the first Humbrol Authentic set - but the standard dropped dramatically when they topped doing the sets.  However, generally, be very careful of old colour photographs.  They help a lot but can mislead.  Especially with the number of colourized ones around, ancient as well as modern.   In less enlightened moments I rather hope that such perpetrators will have reserved their own particular corner of Hell.

 

EDSG doesn't look particularly blue, but very dark, when new.  However it rapidly fades to a distinct blue-grey, approaching (but perhaps never quite reaching) an RAF uniform.  Nick Millman quoted paint trials which reported it fading to grey, but I suspect this was either even further down the line, or a somewhat specific meaning of grey.  As distinct from Dark Sea Grey, which never takes on this blue hue.  Painting a model in DSG as a replacement for, or to suggest a faded example of EDSG, just doesn't work.  Been there, done that (more than once), but never again.

 

RLM 76 is indeed a grey, but a blue-grey rather than a neutral one.  Certainly there should be a distinct blue hue.  Except maybe in the very late war very light shade, but that's another story.

 

 

[GordonM]

6 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Buy a set of the colour charts.  Look for a 2nd hand copy of RAF Colours of WW2 from Arms&Armour Press/RAF Museum.  For enamel paints go for Colourcioats, Xtracolour or P hoenix Precision Paints, all of which are generally reliable.  There are more accurate colours buried in the Humbrol range (and history) but the older ones were general paints not specifically designed for matching aircraft colours accurately.    There are good acrylics and poor ones...  not my speciality but the more recent lacquer acrylics appear more reliable.

The only drawback with ‘RAF Colours’ is the price: currently the cheapest copy on Amazon is £125! My wife would murder me if I paid that for any book!

[Graham Boak]

Look for second hand book shops.  I bought my (second) copy of it only a few years ago for £40.  (And if I knew what happened to by first, I wouldn't have need a second!)  There is a set in the back of the old Harleyford Camouflage book, but printed and hence not quite as good.  I must admire being a bit surprised that more books haven't presented ones.  Scale Models did a good Special in the 70s/80s which provided matches for all the colours, but using the Methuen Guide.  This was widely used among printers, but it has its own problems when it comes to light colours and is pretty well unavailable nowadays anyway.  As a general guide to colour Munsell is supreme but horrendously high priced and unavailable, Panatone is no use at all.  Some swear by RGB but I've never seen it proven to me.  For paints you need RBY anyway.  Professional colour specialists may use other systems.  Just don't use FS - this is not a system but a catalogue.  Great for US colours from the 50s onwards.

 

PS  Actually, although I am somewhat biased against it, the AK book might be the best thing available as an introduction.  I pass not judgement on the accuracy of every colour, because those in its British Army section are way off.  I'm not actually recommending it, but it might be better than my prejudice suggests.  Given readily available alternatives.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Graham Boak

[Seahawk]

2 hours ago, GordonM said:

The only drawback with ‘RAF Colours’ is the price: currently the cheapest copy on Amazon is £125! 

And, if you clicked on it, Amazon's pricing algorithm has probably doubled that.  In my experience Amazon is an expensive place to buy rare (as opposed to current or recently remaindered) books.  Go onto Abebooks and put a watch on for it: you may get lucky.

[Mr T]

Nothing to do with the colours, but you realise how godawful the nose of the  original Airfix Defiant is and that was not the only issue. 

[Work In Progress]

Indeed. The only virtue of that nose is that it distracts the eye from all the other problems 

[Work In Progress]

27 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

And, if you clicked on it, Amazon's pricing algorithm has probably doubled that.  In my experience Amazon is an expensive place to buy rare (as opposed to current or recently remaindered) books.  Go onto Abebooks and put a watch on for it: you may get lucky.

Checking back, the one I managed to pick up last year was £32.85 via an Amazon-based seller. Given the very limited supply and the number of people sitting around bored at home at the momen tI think the current crisis has probably driven prices up very sharply. They will be back down next year I would imagine.

[Tbolt]

Personally I like Humbrol 29 for Dark Earth. I don't know how accurate it is, but I find after gloss coat, some weathering and a final varnish coat it look right to me.

 

[Graham Boak]

It isn't as dark as the chip and more accurate tins, but is not so far from a slightly-used careful-previous-owner.  

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

@Graham Boak almost everyone in the professional world uses CIELAB colourspace nowadays. RGB is very difficult to visualise. I may be too young but I truely loathe Munsell and Metheun - waaaaaaay too much subjectivity in guesstimating positions between chips for my liking.

 

CIELAB is very intuitive, and speaking purely for myself I can see colours from a set of coordinates like an experienced musician knows how notated music will sound.

[TonyW]

55 minutes ago, Mr T said:

Nothing to do with the colours, but you realise how godawful the nose of the  original Airfix Defiant is and that was not the only issue. 

The BTK Spitfire above it makes the Defiant better than a new Tamiya kit by comparison. Mind you, they did 'borrow' the shape from Aurora.

[Smudge]

10 hours ago, TonyW said:

The picture shows two Defiants, one finished in what was a near universal choice for many years, Humbrol 29 and 30..........

Errr......which one is which??

 

The colours on the right hand Defiant are rather bright.

[TonyW]

Just now, Smudge said:

Errr......which one is which??

 

The colours on the right hand Defiant are rather bright.

The dull looking one on the left is the old build, H29 and 30. 

[Smudge]

Ok, thanks.

 

Sorry, but I prefer those darker colours. Maybe it's just what I'm used to.

[Graham Boak]

I wouldn't mind the darker brown but the green is awful.  I was trying a new tin of 30 two nights back and it came out the same.  I usually think that 30 is a better match for Dark Sea Green but maybe not.  Perhaps the sicklier of the green in Euro 1, hat gets sometimes mistaken for wartime Foliage Green?

[junglierating]

I agree with Tony W humbrol colours (in this case do look muddy....bring back M2 ,M17 and M13 I say 😀(airfix paints)

[TonyW]

13 minutes ago, Smudge said:

Ok, thanks.

 

Sorry, but I prefer those darker colours. Maybe it's just what I'm used to.

Your not going to like my Whitley, done in the style of a WW2 era wooden kit. I used a cigarette card as a colour guide, reasoning that colour pictures and appropriate paints  would be hard to come by at the time. 😄

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

22 minutes ago, Smudge said:

Ok, thanks.

 

Sorry, but I prefer those darker colours. Maybe it's just what I'm used to.

 

TBH neither of them hits the mark. Humbrol 29 isn't a bad Dark Earth, whilst Humbrol 30 is a woeful RAF Dark Green.

 

The Revell colours are both too light and too bright.

 

Neither is helped by the roundels either which are too dark on the left one and much too bright on the right hand one.

 

There's no great mystery to what RAF WWII era paints looked like - but a combination of Airfix/Humbrol and American approximations have done a lot of damage over the years in terms of teaching people to expect to see something that doesn't much resemble to real thing.

 

There are probably more people now who believe they know what it should look like but are mistaken than people who know what they actually looked like.

 

Saying that, it's no different to RLM70/71 or USN WWII schemes. They've all had the Stevie Wonder treatment at the hands of crappy model kit paint guides with their "If it's blue, it'll do" sort of approach.

[Tbolt]

Well I'm sticking with Humbrol 29 for my Dark Earth for now as I have a few tins left, though I am slowly switching over to Colour Coats as I use my Humbrol supply up. 

 

This is Humbrol 29 it's maybe a little reder here and for for some reason the green is bluer in this photo than it is to the naked eye which is Humbrol 116 with some 30 in. I hate trying match photos with what my eye sees.

 

Anyway Humbrol's QC is so bad that colours seem to vary much between tins 🙄.