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Accuracy of AMMO by Mig Jiménez RAF WWII Colours


Nobby Clarke

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I’m mostly in the colours and markings camp, so when I see is model that is finished in unrealistic (or just plain wrong) colours, I walk/click away. For me, if it doesn’t look right from a distance, what’s the point in getting closer?*


I think what annoys me most is that in the majority of cases, we really do know what these colours looked like, so there’s no excuse for the manufacturers to screw it up.

 

* I realise that might not be a popular opinion, but there it is.

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Well, I have perfect (or near perfect) colour vision, but to me Cambridge Blue is green, and definitely greener than my idea of turquoise. In my mother tongue (Italian) we have three main terms to describe the colour blue: celeste, azzurro and blu, in order of darkness and saturation...

 

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2 hours ago, Super Aereo said:

but to me Cambridge Blue is green

You are not wrong, I think it is a generally accepted fact. In addition the word Blue in this context may mean more than the actual colour.

 

BTW The Russians divide blue into two separate colours. 

 

The whole duck egg blue/green thing practically ruined my childhood as in those days there were a limited number of colours of Platignum Felt tips to colour in my Battle of Britain film colouring book. I was worried about the Dark Earth/Green/Sky thing long before it became fashionable.

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9 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

vague discussions about greenishness and brownishness

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" -  I think we might sometimes say something similar regarding some discussions of colour. 

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I think we all should just thank the Lord he created the sun in such a way that the light it is emitting matches the spectrum our human eyes can detect so well. If he had decided to make the sun in a different way, there would be no color discussion at all!

 

(com on)

 

I think Jamie should measure Ammo Mig early WW2 RAF Dark Earth and Dark Green and Humbrol 29 and 30 and compare that to "the book" ... and we all have a good laugh.

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10 hours ago, Geoffrey Sinclair said:

whether the language had a single word for the colour involved.  If you like English has blue

I can't see many people buying that one - here are 11 other names for blue - there are probably more.

Fancy names

sky, azure, cobalt, sapphire, cerulean, navy, saxe (saxon), ultramarine, lapislazuli, aquamarine, teal.

 

To make it simple you can just translate this into any language.

Simple definition - the primary colour between green and violet in the visible spectrum, light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm

 

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7 hours ago, Jochen Barett said:

I think Jamie should measure Ammo Mig early WW2 RAF Dark Earth and Dark Green and Humbrol 29 and 30 and compare that to "the book" ... and we all have a good laugh.

 

If someone wishes to send me a 2.5cm / 1 inch square sample if these I would be happy to. Once upon a time I had the Humbrol ones - I'll have a quick look just in case but I think they're gone. IIRC the Humbrol 29 Dark Earth wasn't too bad really but the green was off. Likewise I can't really condemn the Mig Dark Earth based on the photograph because it's juxtaposed against their green which I'm certain is off.

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3 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

If someone wishes to send me a 2.5cm / 1 inch square sample if these I would be happy to. Once upon a time I had the Humbrol ones - I'll have a quick look just in case but I think they're gone. IIRC the Humbrol 29 Dark Earth wasn't too bad really but the green was off. Likewise I can't really condemn the Mig Dark Earth based on the photograph because it's juxtaposed against their green which I'm certain is off.

 

I think there are a few issues at play: one is the "absolute accuracy" of a paint colour: the extent to which Dark Green of brand X resembles the Dark Green used by the RAF in the early 1940s. You could imagine that with some sort of scientific measurement the accuracy could be established comparing paint chips. Or the other way around: if I were to take a tin of Sovereign Hobbies' Dark Green I could get into a time machine use that paint to touch up a real 1942 Spitfire and nobody could tell the difference between that patch of paint and the Air Ministry-issued 'real' Dark Green.

 

Then there is "subjective accuracy" which can incorporate scale effect. Like I mentioned previously in this thread, there was a guy who tried to paint his F-104 with actual paint of F-104s and the model looked all wrong. Scale effect is a hugely debatable issue but this anecdote has convinced me that there really is something to it; I think that somehow our brains cannot quite process what a scale model is: on the one hand our brain realizes it's the real thing shrunk down by a factor of 32, 48 or 72 (or any other scale), but at the same time, our brain tricks us into thinking we're looking at a life-size object at a distance - and then the colours should be muted because of haze / particles in the air that increase this effect the smaller the scale (and to our brains the further away) the thing is we are looking at.

 

Then the thing Jamie here makes me think of is that there might also be something like "relative accuracy": does the Dark Green of Brand X look accurate in combination with the Dark Earth of Brand X - or does it look better with the Dark Earth of Brand Y. This might have something to do with context, and that's another thing: If you were to have a painting (2-dimensional) of say a Lancaster in order for it to look realistic a painter should use different tones of the colours - for example to place it in a certain context. Night time, morning, mid-day - the context, the natural light determines to an extent how colours are perceived regardless of their absolute colour.

 

Let's imagine you cut out the Lancaster from a painting that depicts "Lancaster at dusk" and then paste that image of the Lancaster in a different painting called "Lancaster at mid-day" it would look wrong because the colours don't match the context.

 

In a way that's what models are too: they are scale representations (in 3d) of real objects out of context. So if we simulate the colours of how we perceive a Lancaster to look, we forget that there's a context in which it looks that way. We might have an image in our minds of the colours of a Lancaster at dusk and paint it accordingly, and then it would look exactly right in that context (that isn't there unless you put it in a diorama with an elaborate background and lighting), but if you were to measure the absolute colour values they might not be totally accurate.

 

Finally, an anecdote (if I recall correctly) about Stanislavski, the theorist who is credited with inventing "method acting". He once was having a discussion with a friend about realism in paintings. He said, imagine there's a realistic looking life-size portrait of me, and I were to cut out the nose and stand behind the painting and poke my nose through it in its place, the painting would be more realistic but I would have ruined the painting itself.

 

 

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I'm not happy with AMMO paints as an application and cleaning, at least with the originality of the shades for the planes.

Maybe it's different for the armor, but I prefer MRP and HATAKA.

For RAF colors from WWII and the new BS standard.

 

My experiment with orange HATAKA.

 

hatakaorange-raf-set.jpg

 

Samo/P.k

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12 minutes ago, politicni komisar said:

I'm not happy with AMMO paints as an application and cleaning, at least with the originality of the shades for the planes.

Maybe it's different for the armor, but I prefer MRP and HATAKA.

For RAF colors from WWII and the new BS standard.

 

My experiment with orange HATAKA.

 

hatakaorange-raf-set.jpg

 

Samo/P.k

 

12 minutes ago, politicni komisar said:

I prefer MRP and HATAKA.

Your comment is the second I have seen for Hataka in as many days, so I am going to have to give them a go! I've grown to enjoy my pair of Ammo Mig bright brown and green models but not sure I'd use them again, albeit they did cover the surface much better than Vallejo. I have also acquired a set of AK Interactive RAF colours too try .. so now just need to acquire a squadron or two of WW2 aircraft to try them out on 😂

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4 minutes ago, Tour de Airfix said:

 

Your comment is the second I have seen for Hataka in as many days, so I am going to have to give them a go! I've grown to enjoy my pair of Ammo Mig bright brown and green models but not sure I'd use them again, albeit they did cover the surface much better than Vallejo. I have also acquired a set of AK Interactive RAF colours too try .. so now just need to acquire a squadron or two of WW2 aircraft to try them out on 😂

 

I now have a preference for Hataka for VVS colours - as far as I can tell they are the best match for that particular 'genre'.  However, I've seen some Hataka representations of late war RLM colours and they look to be every bit as inaccurate as Mig's.

 

The other thing to say about Hataka - I use the 'red line', which is supposedly optimised for airbrush use.  It isn't.  Red line is so thick I doubt if it would even go through a garden hose (that's a massive over-statement, but you get the point).  

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@WerdnaAccuracy wise I think you are correct but I have used the Hataka red line and it flows trough my 0,2 mm Badger nozzle faultlessly...thinning this with Mr color leveling thinner makes it even better for the thinner lines..believe me it works  ....
Accuracy wise I still tend to use Humbrol paints for my luftwaffe and raf projects as they mostly (mostly not all😉) match all the paintsamples I have..

 

cheers, Jan

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6 minutes ago, janneman36 said:

@WerdnaAccuracy wise I think you are correct but I have used the Hataka red line and it flows trough my 0,2 mm Badger nozzle faultlessly...thinning this with Mr color leveling thinner makes it even better for the thinner lines..believe me it works  ....
Accuracy wise I still tend to use Humbrol paints for my luftwaffe and raf projects as they mostly match all the paintsamples I have..

 

cheers, Jan

 

Hi Jan

 

That's strange - I can't get the Hataka to work without significant thinning.  I would usually thin paint for airbrush use anyway (regardless of what the bottle might say), but Hataka always needs considerably more thinner than my 'regular' Vallejo model air paints.  This is usually for a 0.4 Sparmax.  I also have a 0.2 H&S, but I haven't even bothered trying to run them through that ;) 

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16 minutes ago, Werdna said:

 

Hi Jan

 

That's strange - I can't get the Hataka to work without significant thinning.  I would usually thin paint for airbrush use anyway (regardless of what the bottle might say), but Hataka always needs considerably more thinner than my 'regular' Vallejo model air paints.  This is usually for a 0.4 Sparmax.  I also have a 0.2 H&S, but I haven't even bothered trying to run them through that ;) 

That is indeed strange that it doesn’t work for you🤔 maybe you can try the solution I use and mix it with mr color leveling thinner...

It sounds strange but to get thinner paint just mix it to a mr color 4 or 5 thinner to one Paint mix ratio It reacts firstly as it doesn’t want to mix but then after some stirring the magic happens and it will mix and will be easy to use...another thinner I use is denatured alcohol consisting in a mix of IPA, MEK, Bitrex. sorry if these aren’t the correct English names for this stuff but it is used for desinfecting materials used in hospitals and surgery..

 

cheers, Jan

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52 minutes ago, janneman36 said:

Hataka red line

I'd love to try these but you only seem to be able to buy sets in the UK. Does anyone know a UK supplier who stocks the range as individual paints?

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10 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

If someone wishes to send me a 2.5cm / 1 inch square sample if these I would be happy to. Once upon a time I had the Humbrol ones - I'll have a quick look just in case but I think they're gone. IIRC the Humbrol 29 Dark Earth wasn't too bad really but the green was off. Likewise I can't really condemn the Mig Dark Earth based on the photograph because it's juxtaposed against their green which I'm certain is off.

I'd like to echo Jamie's offer for those living on the east side of the Atlantic...

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On languages and their words for colour and what effect it has.

 

On 09/04/2021 at 08:34, Ed Russell said:

I can't see many people buying that one - here are 11 other names for blue - there are probably more.

Fancy names sky, azure, cobalt, sapphire, cerulean, navy, saxe (saxon), ultramarine, lapislazuli, aquamarine, teal.

 

To make it simple you can just translate this into any language.

Simple definition - the primary colour between green and violet in the visible spectrum, light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm

English has been committing a form of armed word robbery from most other languages for quite some time, and is widely spoken.  Unfortunately I used English as an example as that is the language of this site.  I am not sure how far apart light wavelengths need to be before the average person calls it a different colour.

 

Consider the various languages spoken by smaller groups of people, which makes them specific to a given area and its associated colour palette, say the difference in colours between an arid area versus one with much more rainfall.  Therefore which colours are considered important enough to have their own word and which are not.

 

Consider how much time interest groups spend trying to define a standard language for a given situation, since people using that language will then tend to agree with the accompanying proposed solutions etc.

 

One day Britmodeller might have a British English auto spell checker, nail its colors to the language wall.

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I'm not sure what your post has to do with anything about colour!

As many English words have been donated to other languages as have been adopted into English.

If you are trying to say language is related to the colour an actual object is or how the person perceives (sees. physically responds to) that colour, well I don't buy that either. it's all about wavelengths, rods and cones and receptors.

How they express what they are seeing is certainly language-specific and limited by the word they are familiar with.

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I had an old Humbrol 30...

 

a441c2e0-0c42-47ca-b138-98887e452fbc.png

 

These were taken using my hand-held Nix Pro Color Sensor using D65/10deg standards. It's not as accurate as the factory desk mounted and annually calibrated spectrophotometer, but a million times more accurate than male humans guesstimating!

 

RGB values quoted purely so you can punch them into your favourite Paint-type software and render the colour yourself in sRGB255. Please instead look at the L*a*b* coordinates. L is brightness from 0=theoretical black hole to 100=you're off to heaven white - neither is real in reality. The "a" axis is +red -green. The "b" axis is +yellow -blue. As can be seen, RAF Dark Green for real is a dark yellow (as per my video) with a greenish lean. Humbrol 30 is the other way round - it's a dark green with a yellowish lean which is why people describe is as "too bluish" by comparison. As the CIELAB colourspace system was designed to describe colour the way humans perceive it, people describe Humbrol 30 as being "too bluish" because it has far too weak a positive-b value to look like the real RAF Dark Green which, as per my previous posts and hopefully demonstrated by aforementioned video, is basically just a dark yellow.

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4 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

These were taken using my hand-held Nix Pro Color Sensor using D65/10deg standards.

Would be great to see this against the other paints discussed here and purports to be RAF dark green 😊

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Very interesting thread.  Some random thoughts, which may or may not add to the discussion  😃

 

My home town is also home to Alexander Dennis, who started off as Walter Alexander (Coachbuilders) Ltd. An old friend had a relative who worked for them and who could sometimes liberate small samples of paint from the paint shop. My friend used that to repaint his Corgi and Dinky buses into representative, mostly Scottish Bus Group, schemes. Our local SGB operator was Midland Scottish who used a bright French Blue and Cream:

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/Cjq9A1AUuULAp3GDA

 

The blue from Alexander's paint shop looked terrible, much too dark on the model. I used Humbrol 14 on mine and, to my eye at least, looked much better. It was still a bright, reasonably pure blue though. I remember the same thing happening with SBG Fife Red - Humbrol 19 was much more representative on a small model. It was, however, still a bright red and not a crimson or a maroon.

 

In later years I joined the family business, who were screen printers and sign makers. One of the most fascinating aspects of that for me was visiting ink suppliers and watching their technicians wet matching samples of colour. Professionals who are used to working with paints and inks are extremely good at this.

 

Later on I went to work for Zeneca, before they got into tow with Astra. The factory in Grangemouth made, among other things, pigments. The main lines were Monastral Blue and Green but they also made Procion dyes under contract from BASF and Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black toner pigments under contract from Fuji. Great care is taken to get all of these pigments consistent. The factory had a Standardising Department with state-of-the-art equipment to test every batch and make sure it sat within the contracted limits. Anything that didn't led to the batch being rejected.

 

Humbrol 30 was, in fact, originally an olive green, not too far from the old Airfix M3 that Troy mentioned. I have a couple of ancient tins:

 

Hum302_zpsd5t1ondm.jpg

Hum301_zpsbhsyy7qu.jpg

 

As far as I can tell, it went to a blue-green about the time the grey-stripe tins came in. All the checked-tin 30s I've seen have been olive in character. I wonder if Humbrol went over to using Monastral Green base for 30 at that time? As it comes off the line it's a distinctly blue green colour. 

 

John

 

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1 hour ago, Tour de Airfix said:

Would be great to see this against the other paints discussed here and purports to be RAF dark green 😊

 

As above if someone sends me samples I'll measure them. If I happen to have them here I'll do it myself, but perhaps selfishly I've no particular inclination to go round buying other companies' paints just to measure them which I'm sure most will understand - it's not as though I'd have any use for them after taking a tiny amount for a swatch :)

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5 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

As above if someone sends me samples I'll measure them. If I happen to have them here I'll do it myself, but perhaps selfishly I've no particular inclination to go round buying other companies' paints just to measure them which I'm sure most will understand - it's not as though I'd have any use for them after taking a tiny amount for a swatch :)

Agreed. I've already read multiple samples a member here sent me, and would be pleased to do so again. I'm retired, so free time is not an issue. The money and space to store paints bought solely for testing, are.

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On 09/04/2021 at 06:22, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

If someone wishes to send me a 2.5cm / 1 inch square sample if these I would be happy to.

I have a sample of the Mig Ammo 915 Dark Green (BR41) discussed in this thread. It was the paint supplied in the Early RAF set. It is roughly business card sized airbrushed on plastic card.

 

I am happy to donate if no one has already done so. If you want it, is there a preferred address to send it to?

Edited by Pete F
typo corrected
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