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What Tamiya Paints to get started in WW2 Tank models?


CrazyCanuck

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Hi gents.

 

Looking for some advice. Could you recommend the first dozen Tamiya paints I should get to get back into the hobby?

Obviously flat black, flat white, German grey. Any others I should get? I have mostly German models in my stash, but also British, US, and some Soviets.

I am under an area in lockdown so have to do curbside pick up, trying to put an order in soon. 

 

Thanks,

CC

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46 minutes ago, CrazyCanuck said:

Hi gents.

 

Looking for some advice. Could you recommend the first dozen Tamiya paints I should get to get back into the hobby?

Obviously flat black, flat white, German grey. Any others I should get?

I am under an area in lockdown so have to do curbside pick up, trying to put an order in soon. 

 

Thanks,

CC

Sorry, but this is a bit vague.   

what nation(s) would help and  area and time.

  

Tamiya are pretty limited in their paint range,   so they don't do many specific paints.   There are paint in their range usually recommended for German Armour, unsurprisingly.  How close they I don't know.   Many Tamiya instructions are online,  which will have their recommendations for German armour.   A search shows they recently added some new specfic German colours to their range, 

"Tamiya's new XF series revised Panzer colors are out now. I picked up Dark Yellow 2, Red Brown 2 and Panzer Olive Green" I saw a review which was not convinced though.

Dark Iron and Rubber Black are also recommended. 

 

@Das Abteilung maybe able to add some recommendations.

 

For US tanks, XF-62 Olive Drab is a good bet, (but US Olive Drab did vary. ) 

 

For British paint, it will be all mixes.  British armour colours are a lot more complex than is realised, 

Tamiya mixes are in the guide

https://www.mafva.org/british-vehicle-camouflage-1939-45/?v=79cba1185463

 

I did find a good mix for Soviet 4BO Green, I think it's 50/50 mix of XF-58 Olive Green and XF-49 Khaki but it's not too hand.    This was a decent match to a paint chip of some AKAN 4BO green I was sent though. 

 

Note, you can edit your question, and thread heading by using the the little dots at the top right of you post.

 

HTH

 

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I agree on the 4BO mix, found that one years ago as well. But it is the early war one.
60351308_1248720401943790_60142943730453 

original German colour picture of early "grassgreen" 4BO


2 x XF58 + 1 x XF49 gives a fair RAL6003 "olive grün" by the way (compared to RAL card), XF58 is too dark.

 

XF62 changed over time.... The Zaloga mix of XF62 with some XF60 dark yellow used to be a great US olive drab. But XF62 turned very green lately.

That ruins most of Mike's mixes...
 

Gunze acrylics used to be quite mixable with Tamiya acrylics. Don't know whether its still valid.
 

Edited by Steben
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I wouldn't use any Tamiya paints.  Firstly they are generic colours not matched to anything and you will end up mixing to get accurate colours, if accuracy bothers you.  Tamiya, like Humbrol, Revell and other brands just offer a range of generic colours and in their own brand kits just give you the nearest match from their own range.  The world has moved on and we have come to expect accurately matched colours.

 

Secondly, I find Tamiya acrylic paints to be dreadful to work with by brush and airbrush, although other people rave about them.  My paint of last resort.  I haven't tried their newer lacquer range.

 

IMO you would be better looking at the likes of MiG, Vallejo, Lifecolor or Mr Color - all of whom offer specifically matched colours.   If you build up your paint collection model by model you will end up with a decent selection.  Revell and Humbrol offer generic colour ranges too and Revell paints can, perhaps surprisingly, be nice to work with.

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5 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

I wouldn't use any Tamiya paints.  Firstly they are generic colours not matched to anything and you will end up mixing to get accurate colours, if accuracy bothers you.  Tamiya, like Humbrol, Revell and other brands just offer a range of generic colours and in their own brand kits just give you the nearest match from their own range.  The world has moved on and we have come to expect accurately matched colours.

 

Secondly, I find Tamiya acrylic paints to be dreadful to work with by brush and airbrush, although other people rave about them.  My paint of last resort.  I haven't tried their newer lacquer range.

 

IMO you would be better looking at the likes of MiG, Vallejo, Lifecolor or Mr Color - all of whom offer specifically matched colours.   If you build up your paint collection model by model you will end up with a decent selection.  Revell and Humbrol offer generic colour ranges too and Revell paints can, perhaps surprisingly, be nice to work with.


I don’t entirely agree with this, of all the acrylic paints I have tried I find that Tamiya are one of the best to airbrush.

 

I do agree that they are a pain to brush paint though.

 

One thing to bear in mind about Tamiya acrylics is that they are not water-based like many of the alternative makes so you must use their thinner (or equivalent) which is alcohol based.  This is the main reason why they don’t brush paint very well, the solvent evaporates very quickly so the paint literally dries as you are painting - and there is a tendency to lift paint that  has started to dry as you brush over it.  One solution is to add retarders to the mix which slows the drying giving you more time to work with the brush - even so not best paints to brush with.

 

Rubber black or NATO black are very useful because very few things that you encounter in life are actually black, if you look more closely they are very dark grey.  As a beginner it is natural to paint tyres black, if you ask the population what colour are tyres the vast majority would say black - but they aren’t, they are dark grey.  If you paint tyres black they look wrong - using rubber black makes a world of difference.

 

You don’t say what level of modeller you are or what you are trying to achieve .  Posters here are correct, Tamiya has a much smaller range than other makes so their colours are more generic.  So if you are trying to win awards or just satisfy yourself that colour is historically accurate then Tamiya is not for you.  But if your level of modelling is that you don’t want to fussed with all that research, you just want something that looks the part with a simple range of colours without any complex mixing then Tamiya are fine.  For example, you can find lengthy discussions about the British equivalent to olive drab, SCC15, no two paint manufacturers seem to agree, you can find complex recipes mixing three or four paints.  SCC15 was not the same as US olive drab, but to be honest for many modellers it is close enough especially after you have added some weathering.

 

Besides remember that in real life, vehicles supposedly the same colour coming out of different factories could be different shades.  Then there is the elements, the weather, wear and tear, dust mud and grime.  Tanks did not stay looking showroom fresh for very long.

 

It would be good to know what nations and eras you want to cover, I’d say there are at least three distinct theatres where allied and german colours were very different - early war (the blitzkrieg years), later war, and western desert.  So the colours needed will depend a lot on which of these your models are based.

 

And just because a paint manufacturer has a paint that is named correctly down to the original paint code number doesn’t mean it is accurate.  A very good example can be seen in the aircraft section discussing Luftwaffe colours.  Luftwaffe colours where assigned RLM numbers - for example the light blue used for the undersides was RLM 65.  You can find plenty of manufacturers that will sell you an RLM 65 paint.  They reference the original code number so they must all look the same right - wrong, they can be very different so which one is best, that takes a lot of research.  One member posted some fantastic work where he shows photos of actual paint chips compared with the paints from various manufacturers - it is quite shocking to see how much they disagree on some colours - look here

 


BTW my take from that chart is that if you want reliable accurate colours from the tin/bottle then WEM (white ensign models) colourcoats appear to be the best.  They do maritime and armour too.  They brush paint and airbrush excellently.  The downside is that they are enamels, so that means they are smelly, potentially more harmful to inhale (though any airbrushing  should be done in a ventilated area), cleaning brushes and airbrushes is nasty, and are potentially worse for the environment.  On top of that colourcoats are more difficult to find and depending on your country’s laws enamel paint may have shipping restrictions - like incandescent light bulbs, enamel paint is considered bad so many countries are doing their best to eradicate it from existance.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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Good comments above for a difficult question due to Tamiya's limited range, inexact colour matches and the huge range of products now offered by a myriad of companies. 
 

In terms of airbrushing,  I can achieve excellent results with Tamiya although I do tend to thin with Gunze Mr Color Leveling Thinners (CLT). Designed for Gunze lacquer paints, but also does a great job with the Tamiya and Gunze Aqueous ranges. You will see many comments on this site. and the net in general, regarding this technique. This seems to defeat the purpose because if I can source CLT then why not use my preferred Gunze products? Fact is, I do not mind mixing paints and if Tamiya is all you can source (I know what this is like as I have lived in areas where all I could get was Tamiya) then it is still a good option. Also, sometimes it is easier to mix up from someone's proposed mix and critique. For example, I like the Mike Starmer's Tamiya mixes published on the MAFVA link that @Troy Smith provided. Many other recommendations are online some good and some not so. If you must use Tamiya then a better question might be, for example, - "I must use Tamiya paints and I am doing WW2 German armour can anyone point me to some good mixes?" 

 

For brush painting, Tamiya is a pest (it ain't what is use to be) although by using their paint retarder good results can still be achieved - I try to avoid this as there are better options straight out of the bottle/jar.

 

My preferred paints at the moment:

 

Gunze range (aqueous and lacquer) - availability, range, very fine pigment, tough paints that self level and lay down beautifully. Suits my minimum thickness paint technique. I have good ventilation and always wear a mask so fumes (lacquers and CLT) are not an issue. 

 

Life Color - availability, range, self level and lay down beautifully, thin coats, brush beautifully, no fumes. Not as tough as Gunze. 

 

I highlight availability as this is usually my first imperative. 

 

Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, nheather said:

This is the main reason why they don’t brush paint very well, the solvent evaporates very quickly so the paint literally dries as you are painting - and there is a tendency to lift paint that  has started to dry as you brush over it.  One solution is to add retarders to the mix which slows the drying giving you more time to work with the brush - even so not best paints to brush with.

 

59 minutes ago, Ray_W said:

For brush painting, Tamiya is a pest (it ain't what is use to be) although by using their paint retarder good results can still be achieved

 

I see this all the time. 

 

Water works fine, with a small amount of flow improver.  (the -ol in alcohol is the part the hydroxyl molecule, -OH ,   that makes is water soluble, so you can use water)

get a mini syringe, say 1ml, suck up 0.95 ml water (I use de-ionised,  sold in supermarkets for ironing)  and 0.05 ml flow improver, shake to mix,  add paint to a palette,  add water/FI mix a drop at a time, say semi skim milk,  use a flat brush.   

Brushes wonderfully, really flat, and you can recoat in minutes.  

 

as @nheather points out usually it dries off to fast and then lifts the previous, the water reduces some of the 'hotness' and speed of evaporation. 

If you look at the work of @PlaStix he brushes Tamiya all the time with no problem,  but if you don't thin it this way it will behave as described by Nigel.

2 hours ago, nheather said:

vehicles supposedly the same colour coming out of different factories could be different shades.

Not very different.  Just by the sheer volume of paint required, and thus the amount of raw pigment,   the bulk of pigment  is the commoner cheaper ones. white, black, ochre.   Long thread here,  but

 

I'm going to quote this specific post, as it is one of the most useful I have seen ever regarding paint manufacture arguments,  and this is from a man who runs a paint company, and has recreated Royal Navy paint from original formulas

 

" I'm going to point out some facts about real-life paint manufacture and either the reader will understand and "get it" or will not understand and are in no position to contradict me.

 

1) Usually camouflage colours are fairly low saturation colours because these blend in better with nature. They're seldom bright and bold. Low saturation colours are normally manufactured by adding coloured pigments to a base made from inexpensive white or white and black pigments.

 

2) Colour pigments are expensive. The expense varies depending on the specific pigment, but they're expensive.

 

3) The only way to over-saturate a colour so much is to substantially over-dose your base with the expensive colour pigments. I'm not talking about a few percent more or less - that causes minor differences which you only confirm the presence of with one swatch adjacent to another - I'm talking more in the order of a double dose to get something you obviously look at and think "woah".

 

4) In the case of colours like dark olive, these are mostly white, black and ochre (which is relatively inexpensive for a colour pigment) sometimes further tinted with a bit of red or green (which are often very expensive).

 

5) There can certainly be variances in a manufactured paint, but these tend to be greatly overstated, i.e. used as a ready made excuse for all sorts of mistakes. Ultimately, the only way a manufactured paint can end up so oversaturated is to have dumped in a vast amount of the expensive pigments, if not adding in new additional pigments in large quantities not expected in the recipe. Frankly, it's difficult to see how any manufactured paint could end up so drastically off target, particularly in the over-saturated sense, by any business that wasn't actively trying to bankrupt itself by roasting through obscene quantities of pigments like chrome green which were already expensive at the start of the war and in particularly short supply during.

 

6) I'd venture that most of the "there was a war on, you know" type apologists for such spectacular errors probably don't have any actual experience of what is and isn't possible when mixing different proportions of 2,3 or 4 pigments when 2 of those are usually black and white just to make your base to tint. You simply cannot end up with a Humbrol 30-esque bluish green using only the ingredients to make olive - i.e. you'd actually have to sabotage it by introducing if not blue then an obviously bluish green. Same goes for that bright green Spitfire above - you can't achieve that with black, white, ochre and a touch of red - you'd need to fire in a lot of bright green pigment in to get that saturated on an overly-light base. It would be more tan-like just using the basic olive green ingredients which only turns obviously olive when tinted enough with black. Put another way, with a fixed number of pigments in various ratios you WILL end up somewhere within a certain envelope, and usually when colours like this bright green are discussed it's because it's well outside that envelope.

 

The point of all the above? In essence it's harder to make a credible explanation for how such a colour might have been arrived at in a real-life paint manufacturing environment than it is to demonstrate that someone would have had to go to a lot of trouble to get it so far wrong. That is harder to rationalise than just getting it closer to correct."

 

And @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies posted this practical demonstration of what the above means. 

 

 

So, while there is batch variance,  (usually you get the car touch up analogy) these while slightly different, are still basically the same colour.   To make something very different,  requires getting the base pigments wrong.   

 

HTH

 

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1 hour ago, Ray_W said:

Good comments above for a difficult question due to Tamiya's limited range, inexact colour matches and the huge range of products now offered by a myriad of companies. 
 

In terms of airbrushing,  I can achieve excellent results with Tamiya although I do tend to thin with Gunze Mr Color Leveling Thinners (CLT). Designed for Gunze lacquer paints, but also does a great job with the Tamiya and Gunze Aqueous ranges. You will see many comments on this site. and the net in general, regarding this technique. This seems to defeat the purpose because if I can source CLT then why not use my preferred Gunze products? Fact is, I do not mind mixing paints and if Tamiya is all you can source (I know what this is like as I have lived in areas where all I could get was Tamiya) then it is still a good option. Also, sometimes it is easier to mix up from someone's proposed mix and critique. For example, I like the Mike Starmer's Tamiya mixes published on the MAFVA link that @Troy Smith provided. Many other recommendations are online some good and some not so. If you must use Tamiya then a better question might be, for example, - "I must use Tamiya paints and I am doing WW2 German armour can anyone point me to some good mixes?" 

 

For brush painting, Tamiya is a pest (it ain't what is use to be) although by using their paint retarder good results can still be achieved - I try to avoid this as there are better options straight out of the bottle/jar.

 

My preferred paints at the moment:

 

Gunze range (aqueous and lacquer) - availability, range, very fine pigment, tough paints that self level and lay down beautifully. Suits my minimum thickness paint technique. I have good ventilation and always wear a mask so fumes (lacquers and CLT) are not an issue. 

 

Life Color - availability, range, self level and lay down beautifully, thin coats, brush beautifully, no fumes. Not as tough as Gunze. 

 

I highlight availability as this is usually my first imperative. 

 

Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Personally I don’t use much Tamiya paint but there is one attraction for me - availability, because I don’t have any model shops reasonably near.  So if I want one particular Vallejo or AK then I have to order online, often paying more for the shipping than the paint.  I would love to have a local hobby shop that I could just pop into whenever I need supplies.  Instead, I feel I have to order online and wait to bulk up the order to make the shipping worthwhile.  So here, Tamiya is attractive because there is a local craft store, the UK equivalent of Hobby Lobby but not as good, where I can pick up Tamiya paints.

 

Though one thing putting me off Tamiya right now is that in the UK they have switched from 23ml bottles to 10ml bottles and kept the price the same.  Tamiya used to be the best value paints but now it is the worst.  Not sure if that is a UK thing or true in other countries.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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Hi mate, 

 

If youre getting back into the hobby after a few years out (I did recently) then Tamiya is a good shout as a starting point for airbrush colours. They airbrush nicely and with minimum fuss. 

 

I use them for base coats as i still think they are pretty accurate if you have the ubiquitous Ivory/Buff/NATO black/yellow to add as required. 

 

I am not a huge fan of airbrushing Vallejo, and find their Model Air range more hassle than they are worth. Lots say they can be airbrushed from bottle to pot without thinning but that simply isnt the case in my experience and thinning them is finicky as you have to sue Vallejo thinner and different colours require different amounts to thin them, it isnt uniform. You can get much better results thinning a little and using a little retarder as well but as i say, if youre just coming back and wanting to build confidence and skills back up, i'd avoid them for now. 

 

For brush work, Vallejo Model Colour, Mig Ammo acrylics and Lifecolour all day - all of which you only need water to work with and don't need to thin with thinner. Occasionally white spirit-thinned Humbrol acrylics for some metal work, gun metal finishes etc but rarely. Tamiya doesnt brush nicely as others have said and colour accuracy is much more important for things you brush - figures - so better to go for the more accurate colours. 

 

As an aside - primers. I LOVE Vallejo rattle can primers. I know lots hate them and i understand why as they are a bit unsubtle and hardcore but they level out so nicely and the finish is wonderful, every time. I love them. For armour models you cant beat them in my opinion. What i find is that matching the primer coat to the base coat a bit lets you go thinner and lighter for the base coat than you normally would on a black, grey or white surface and can produce some nice modulation effects. EG Russian Green Vallejo primer, then you base coat a Russian Green over it a shade lighter but thinner. It works very nicely. 

 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

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For me, when airbrushing, most of the time I will use Tamiya. True, they don't really have any authentic colours in their range, but if you are prepared to mix them, then they work perfectly. If you are doing UK/Commonwealth WW2, then Mike Starmers mix's are all you need. I use Tamiya a lot for IDF colours also, and for those mixes, I go to the IDF Modelling site. No doubt for other nations, there will be some mix charts available. You just have to search for them.

But as others have said. out of the bottle, they don't brush well. I resort to other acrylics for brush painting. As for priming, my usual go to is Halfords grey automotive primer. Trouble is, Halfords shops are a bit scarce in France, and I haven't been back to Blighty since November 2019, so I've run out!

 

John.

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I'm with John on this one. I use Tamiya paints almost exclusively and have done for the past 30 years. I find them excellent for airbrushing and regularly use them for brush painting smaller parts. I rarely use a colour 'out of the bottle'. At the very least I add some white or another lighter colour to soften it and match the shade I am looking for, but I often make custom mixes to achieve the look I want. . Exact colour matches don't concern me - by the time I've added washes, weathering and assorted varnishes, the colour has darkened considerably so it's no longer a match  anyway. I've also found that an exact match to a 1/1 scale paint chip doesn't always translate well to a scale replica of a vehicle.

 

I could use other paint brands but after 30 years I'm entirely comfortable with how to get the best out of the Tamiya range - I know how they behave, I know what works and what doesn't and I don't have to sit and think about it.

 

The choice of paint is a very personal thing and they either suit your working methods or they don't. Tamiya works for me but there are many other brands out there if they don't work for someone else.

 

John

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10 hours ago, John Tapsell said:

Exact colour matches don't concern me

Me neither. It makes me smile every time I see someone banging on about paint chips and matching them up to model paints. For me, my starting point will be Mike Starmers Tamiya mix's and then I tweak it from there, taking into account circumstances, ie; how old is the tank? What type of environment has it been operating in? and lastly, how did the crew treat it? This last one is from experience. I was in at a time when everything was painted bronze green. But when our Bedford RL's and Landrovers were lined up, you could definitely see differences in the shades of green. We used to wash the vehicles down with a mixture of petrol and oil mixed together for admin parades, to make them shine a bit. Trouble was, the next time that we went out on exercise, all the dust and crap would stick to the bodywork, giving even more variations to the colour.

 

John.

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12 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Me neither. It makes me smile every time I see someone banging on about paint chips and matching them up to model paints. For me, my starting point will be Mike Starmers Tamiya mix's and then I tweak it from there, taking into account circumstances, ie; how old is the tank? What type of environment has it been operating in? and lastly, how did the crew treat it? This last one is from experience. I was in at a time when everything was painted bronze green. But when our Bedford RL's and Landrovers were lined up, you could definitely see differences in the shades of green. We used to wash the vehicles down with a mixture of petrol and oil mixed together for admin parades, to make them shine a bit. Trouble was, the next time that we went out on exercise, all the dust and crap would stick to the bodywork, giving even more variations to the colour.

 

John.


Well I am a colour/paint guy. And frankly I agree on most you say. The "correct" colour is indeed a starting point for modelling. Yet sometimes there really is a correct colour... for real tanks. Restoration really doesn't come with rust streaks and chipping.
Just like modellign IMHO comes with toning down and filtering "your" colour. I never liked the existence of modulation sets. Some like it, I know. But I think it is in the hand and skill of the modeller. Paint can be mixed.
One of the frustrating elements is so many modeling paint businesses claiming the "correct" colour where it isn't. I usually think of it as a waste. Automotive paints last years are more close to the right colour than the average model paints.
Scale effect? Sure, but leave it to the modeller.

Edited by Steben
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On 4/23/2021 at 8:11 PM, Steben said:


One of the frustrating elements is so many modeling paint businesses claiming the "correct" colour where it isn't. I usually think of it as a waste. Automotive paints last years are more close to the right colour than the average model paints.


I agree with this frustration.  If they sell a paint called dark green and you read some advice that this is a good match for RLM 71 then if it isn’t quite right then fair enough as they never claimed it was anything other than dark green.

 

But if a manufacturer sells a paint as RLM 71 Dunkelgrun then the dried paint should look like RLM 71.  And if you painted samples from different manufacturers claiming to be RLM 71 then they should all look the same, be indistinguishable from each other.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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1 hour ago, nheather said:

But if a manufacturer sells a paint as RLM 71 Dunkelgrun then the dried paint should look like RLM 71.  And if you painted samples from different manufacturers claiming to be RLM 71 then they should all look the same, be indistinguishable from each other.

 

Precisely! A perfect example is IDF Sand Grey. I have two bottles of this colour from two different manufacturers and you'd think that they were talking about two entirely different colours. Whereas the AK version is a good approximation to the actual colour, the Vallejo one is not. Comparing the results of the AK IDF Sand Grey with the Tamiya mix that I have from the IDF Modelling site, they are very close, but the Vallejo is more like a faded brown colour. Not one that I will use in the future.

 

John.

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On 25/04/2021 at 10:38, Bullbasket said:

Precisely! A perfect example is IDF Sand Grey. I have two bottles of this colour from two different manufacturers and you'd think that they were talking about two entirely different colours. Whereas the AK version is a good approximation to the actual colour, the Vallejo one is not. Comparing the results of the AK IDF Sand Grey with the Tamiya mix that I have from the IDF Modelling site, they are very close, but the Vallejo is more like a faded brown colour. Not one that I will use in the future.

 

John.

 Which one? :D RC094, 095 or 096?

Vallejo has some nice colours, but they feature an abundance of paints with the same name. How many variants that are linked to a dark green or olive drab do they have?
I think Vallejo IDF's should be treated as pre-lightened colours at least.
I found 71.016 (OD)+ 71.122 gives about AK RC095. Close to 1 on 1

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, my 2p on Vallejo paints. In a recent discussion on the Airfix Tribute Forums, Ratch produced a sample where Vallejo had attached the same FS595a value to 2 different shades. They could not possibly both be correct!

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I assume you have an airbrush etc...

 

Personally I favour Tamiya acrylics for airbrushing (don't use them with hairy sticks unless using retarder), I find them easy to spray, hard as nails, quick drying and easy to clean up with Methylated Spirits (denatured alcohol) (I'm talking airbrush cleaning).  What's more easy to find and reasonably priced.  One of the things I like about Tamiya acrylics is that you can thin the hell out of them - though 1:2 paint to thinner best IMO.

 

Sure, their colors are more or less generic, though there have been exceptions over the last few years (e.g XF 81 (Dark Green 2 RAF), XF 82 (Ocean Grey 2 RAF) and XF 83 (Medium Sea Grey 2 RAF) great if your painting a RAF Spitfire Mk IX C from1941...). 

 

I also use Mr Color, but only as a second choice.  Their colours can be more 'accurate' (but that topic is a number of warehouses of cans of worms...).  But I find their drying time is in the hours if not overnight.  Also they tend to be of the semi-gloss type, not flat...which possibly accounts for the longer drying time.  But they spray very well, and go down flat with the right pressure and humidity, and dry very hard.

 

Rather  spending money on a range of paints you might use, it might be best to choose a model you are going to build and select the colours for that kit.  That way, you're not buying things you may not use, and your building up your paints based on what you use (and learning to mix paints which you will need to do). Mind you, you may need to buy multiple of the same colour, especially for the base coats, usually for the one build...especially for 1/32

Helps to also get into mixing your own paints to get the 'correct' colours - RAL1001 Elfenbein is an example if you're into Panzer interiors...  :worms:

Also have a look at https://hobbylandbg.com/colourtable

 

Buy  a supply of 100ml clear plastic graduated squeezable dropper bottles from eBay (like these) to keep your special recipe mixed paints in.  Great for using with your airbrush too.  Also some disposable clear plastic pipettes for the dropper bottle, filling of.

 

 

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Tamiya paints - and Mr Hobby / aqua as well - are great airbrush paints once thinned.

The best way to mix colours is to get hold of good reference swatches. And a modern RAL colour fan is easy to get and gives a huge amount of references just like that.

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2 hours ago, Steben said:

And a modern RAL colour fan is easy to get and gives a huge amount of references just like that.

epaint do RAL fan deck for £16.99

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/RAL-colour-guides.asp

 

These are paint chips, and is maybe the cheapest set of chips available.    

 

A BSC is £42

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/British-Standard-colour-guides.asp

 

By comparison, a AMS standard 595A deck is £255! 

 

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/products.asp?cat=65

 

 

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2 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

epaint do RAL fan deck for £16.99

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/RAL-colour-guides.asp

 

These are paint chips, and is maybe the cheapest set of chips available.    

 

A BSC is £42

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/British-Standard-colour-guides.asp

 

By comparison, a AMS standard 595A deck is £255! 

 

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/products.asp?cat=65

 

 

 

Do not forget the cheapest decks are all gloss.
I have the bigger K5 decks in both gloss and semi-matt. (on wich one has so much space one can even make experiments with sanded matt areas and varnish....)

The £42 BSC deck is gloss as well. Not ideal.
The matt ones are in the +200 league as well...

Edited by Steben
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On 21/04/2021 at 16:31, CrazyCanuck said:

Hi gents.

 

Looking for some advice. Could you recommend the first dozen Tamiya paints I should get to get back into the hobby?

Obviously flat black, flat white, German grey. Any others I should get? I have mostly German models in my stash, but also British, US, and some Soviets.

I am under an area in lockdown so have to do curbside pick up, trying to put an order in soon. 

 

Thanks,

CC

Black 

white 

red 

yellow 

blue -

with the above primary's you can mix any colour you want...this should always be in your pallet as you can then adjust any special colour you have to suit the model you are building

Then-

Olive drab 

Panzer grey

Desert yellow-

The above can now be altered with the above primary's to shortcut to a particular colour

Now all you need to do is decide on what paint manufacturer suits your style.......... and paint type...IE... Acrylic lacquer, Acrylic water, Enamel....all the different types have their strengths and weaknesses.

Pick the same list above in oil paints and you have the perfect weathering mediums also.

Don't get too wrapped up in precise colour unless your vehicles are being modelled as fresh from the factory......as @Bullbasket has already pointed out weathering washing and time of year can drastically change a pigment.

 

And almost forgot ...a clear gloss and a clear matt.....for decaling and in some cases certain weathering techniques

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1 hour ago, Steben said:

Careful with red, yellow and blue though.
A purplish red, warm yellow and indigo wont give you all colours ;)

That's why I stated primary's ....... not purplish red or warm yellow or indigo

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