WWII Royal Air Force Colours & Variations

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

and are creating some kit specific sets

Which would be great... but..... and yes, i know that we frequently have spats and bunfights over colours,  and I can't really see the colours just in the bottles, and the following is meant as a discussion/query rather than a dummy spitting rant, though I am rather put out in general with acrylic attempts at RAF paint... but aspect of this concern me..... so I hope the following will explain further 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

1054 Chocolate

1069 Extra Dark Green

1037 Dark Grey

1032 Blue Grey

1027 Gun Metal

 

Chocolate?  Extra Dark Green? Blue Grey?  Dark Grey?

 

Looking at the paint guide, they are intended to represent Dark Earth (which is a greeny brown), Dark Green(a dark olive green)  and Sky (which is a very pale yellow green, but not blue or grey) which set alarm bells ringing. 

 

I don't really care if they call them Barbie pink and unicorn Purple, if they represent the actual colours well,  but just the names alone worry me....I mean, this is hardly an obscure subject.... and FWIW, the colours shown on the image below  from the instructions are to my eye and screen, 'close enough' for a reasonable idea

 

 

 

and this 1941 Life magazine image shows the colours well, note also the markings, sky, grass, uniforms, faces look 'right' 

Spitfire in England by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

 

But the point is that we have gone backward with RAF model  paint in acrylic..... 

 

 I have several brands, naively thinking as these are well known and well documented colours.... it was only after finding a model when painted looked wrong (still awaiting stripping) 

I really started digging, comparing brush out to the RAF museum book chips.

Xtracrylix are usually rated, I found all the major RAF ones 'off', AK Interactive, same

Tamiya's claimed RAF colours, XF81/82/83 were also off,

I got some Lifecolour, also way off. 

I was sent a sample of Hataka Dark Earth/ Dark Green/Sky, also off.

I'd not trust Vallejo's stated matches for anything these days, though with such a wide range near matches are to be found by trial and error,  we had a mega thread on what serious miss the MigAmmo colours were.... 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235078859-accuracy-of-ammo-by-mig-jiménez-raf-wwii-colours/

At this stage I'm not about to waste any more money or time trusting model paint sets without some trusted confirmation... 

Note, for any of those rolling their eyes,  and 'there was a war on' and the like ideas,  the post in the direct link here

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235078859-accuracy-of-ammo-by-mig-jiménez-raf-wwii-colours/page/3/#elControls_4045174_menu

 

which I'm going to quote for it's clarity, Is one of the most illuminating I have read on here on wartime colours, courtesy of @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies who runs a paint company, and has made up samples from wartime paint formula, so is not talking out of his hat.

 

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.

 

 

Just to clarify, I have good colour vision, and the paints I mention above are frequently not even close,  common problems are beigey or chocolaty  Dark Earth (no green) and muddy Sky (browny tint)  for example, along with blueish Ocean Grey (it's a slightly green hued grey) , muddy or yellowy Medium Sea Grey (it very subtly purple hued grey) being some of the main failings I found...  

 

I know this as I spent a long time doing mixes and comparing them to the chips.    

 

in the case of the Beaufort, they were Temperate Land Scheme, as in pic above, Dark Earth/ Dark Green/Sky, or Temperate Sea Scheme, Dark Slate Grey(a grey green)/Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky, or in the case of MW-R, black undersides

 

 

So.... what are the scheme and colours they are intending in the set?   

 

charitably it's Temperate Land Scheme with some grey? which is for what?  Or are they using the same green for Dark Green and Dark Slate Grey?    

 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Bear in mind that the spoons were prepped by a buff with a very fine sanding sponge to give them the best chance of adhesion.  Using a brush, the colours cover well two coats with minimal brush marks visible.

 

 

Any chance of some images of the spray out ?

Do you have any standards to compare any of these too?   Just something that would allow some idea of the colours in the set.

 

 

I hope  ICM have made decent job of the colours, as the actual paint sounds decent,   though the names picked imply them using 'near matches' from their paint range, which never bodes well. 

 

Hope of interest to the subject under discussion and not too ranty,  and I have explained my concerns reasonably and clearly?

 

 

[PhantomBigStu]

Welcome to see ICM come out with an entire paint range given what has been happening. Also interesting comments in your mega post particularly re Xtracrylix has I’ve always taken them as the gold standard for RAF paint…..

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

Hope of interest to the subject under discussion and not too ranty,  and I have explained my concerns reasonably and clearly?

It does, but a huge proportion of modellers don't really care all that much, as long as it looks 'close enough' for our needs.  There's a small but vocal minority that seem to have a whole 'nuther hobby that involves obsessing over paint.  That's not meant to be a dig, but the ones with a corncob where the sun doesn't shine and think everyone should listen to their infinite wisdom are a problem

 

As to spray-outs, it's not feasible to spray out every single paint that comes in through the door, and there's aren't enough hours in the day or spoons in the drawer to enable us to do it, so we generally do a spray out for new ranges to test the practical aspects of using them.  Then you have the difference in colours caused by photographing paints or colours in general, and reproduction of those pictures on our own and other people's screens, of which 99.99% aren't calibrated, and my two are amongst them because the hardware costs a fortune.  Paint is a very personal issue in many ways, which is why there are so many successful brands, and if you want to find your ultimate colour fidelity, you're going to have to put your hand in your pocket so you can cut out all the afore mentioned variables and figure out those Munsell values at your own workbench.

 

Lastly, the colour names being different isn't a new thing, as this is already well-established in the AMMO paint range amongst others.  Not everyone is British focused (Astonishing, I know) when it comes to paint name formulation.  TBH, that's the least of our colour-related problems, and one that's easily remedied with a simple label from your label printer.

[Troy Smith]

17 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Xtracrylix has I’ve always taken them as the gold standard for RAF paint…..

I think that Xtracolor are good (or always quoted as such) , and that it was assumed Xtracrylix are as well.    I read this as well, that they were to be trusted, took it in good faith, bought oaint  and only when my Arma Hurricane was  resplendent in in colour of chocolate milk puke I did a load of brush outs and comparisons, leading the an extensive range of disappointments.  (and I had read it needed a really really good stir, it got a bent paper clip in a cordless drill whisk up if anyone is curious) 

 

Some of the range maybe good,  but the one I listed I was unhappy with. 

[Mike]

We could probably do with separating this topic away from the review, as it's very quickly diverged from the initial subject.

[Troy Smith]

2 minutes ago, Mike said:

but a huge proportion of modellers don't really care all that much, as long as it looks 'close enough' for our needs. 

My point is this, that the ones mentioned I could show to people who have no interest in subject, and they could spot a noticeable variation. 

Close enough would be fine,  

5 minutes ago, Mike said:

Lastly, the colour names being different isn't a new thing, as this is already well-established in the AMMO paint range amongst others.  Not everyone is British focused (Astonishing, I know) when it comes to paint name formulation.  TBH, that's the least of our colour-related problems, and one that's easily remedied with a simple label from your label printer.

As I mention, the Spanish companies are particularly bad on paint matching, and the use of other names suggests find something vaguely near to whatever their idea is, and using that. 

 

In the linked thread on Ammo Mig, they have a dark chocolate brown for 'Dark Earth' and bright pea green for 'Dark Green' ..

 

You have just posted this

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

We could probably do with separating this topic away from the review, as it's very quickly diverged from the initial subject.

if you wish to move the thread, or replies to WWII aircraft and it's not a major bother, please do,  no wish to derail the review, I just wanted to express some concerns over this. 

I endeavour to provide information in a supported way to provide those interested in such matters so they can form their own opinion, hopefully without being too much of a twonk in the process. 

[Mike]

I've split this topic, as while it has some merit, doesn't really have much relevance to the review it was attached to, especially as it has since diverged from the original and will probably go off in many more directions shortly.  There's a link to the original in the first post by @Troy Smith, and we'll blame him for the split

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Hi Troy,

 

I think labels like:

 

1054 Chocolate

1069 Extra Dark Green

1037 Dark Grey

1032 Blue Grey

1027 Gun Metal

 

... will just be selections from a product range not unlike Humbrol or Vallejo which they have decided are close enough to put in a box labelled as being suitable for the RAF. If anyone does have these and is happy to send 2cm square brush-outs I'd be happy to measure them and provide renders juxtaposed with the RAF Museum and/or BS381C renders. Mike is of course quite correct that one cannot match via a monitor but juxtaposed product beside target on the same monitor will give a sense of closeness. It doesn't take long to do and of course I already have the targets tabulated 'cos of me job.

[Casey]

What I would love to see with paint reviews is a complete measurements of the whole range of colors made from real drawdowns, with spectrometer measured LAB values so I could compare them to other databases objectively. And with what @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies suggested - comparison of couple of colors of interest, like RAF WW2

 

_{Please treat this comment as tongue-in-cheek}

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Casey

[Mike]

2 hours ago, Casey said:

What I would love to see with paint reviews is a complete measurements of the whole range of colors made from real drawdowns, with spectrometer measured LAB values so I could compare them to other databases objectively. And with what @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies suggested - comparison of couple of colors of interest, like RAF WW2

 

_{Please treat this comment as tongue-in-cheek}

 

 

Get me the gear and train me, and I’ll… no, I still won’t have the time if I’m honest. Also tongue in cheek.

[Casey]

37 minutes ago, Mike said:

won’t have the time if I’m honest

It does take quite a while. I did that exercise for Revell Aqua recently, and it was a couple of weeks (of watching paint drying mostly). Anyone wants results?

Edited October 30, 2022 by Casey

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

8 hours ago, Casey said:

It does take quite a while. I did that exercise for Revell Aqua recently, and it was a couple of weeks (of watching paint drying mostly). Anyone wants results?

 

You may as well finish it if the hard part is done. TBH even for general use stuff it's handy as otherwise many are trusting these eyeballed paint converter apps and taking it in good faith that the coordinates therein are objectively measured.

 

Please take it from me that there are a large number of people who are quietly grateful for good information. They tend to be inconspicuous but my inboxes have scores of examples of expressions of support for good research and data either sent out of the blue or tacked on to the back of messages started for other purposes.

 

It's not the same thing as getting mired in arguments that every single example of something was painted precisely the same colour etc etc but it is useful for showing how things compare to standards then it's up to the user to decide where to go from there to their own artistic tastes.

[stevehnz]

44 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

it is useful for showing how things compare to standards then it's up to the user to decide where to go from there to their own artistic tastes.

Very much that Jamie, sums it up to a Tee to my mind. The information I gleaned when Nick Millman walked among us I have found enormously useful to this day. Knowing where I was starting from & why gave a lot of reassurance, the fact that I sometimes erred in my map reading is entirely my fault but generally I got close to where I was heading.

Steve.

[PhantomBigStu]

Given I was part of the reason this thread got split of I should add my rather ignorant thoughts given I don't own the RAFM chips just have seen them on here, and also I believe if the Xtracrylic where matched (And theres some reason I'm skeptical)  they were done to modern British Standards ones. Ill stick to some main ones to start 

 

1.Dark Green, gold standard, actually prefered a Vallejo I was using as it was slightly more greeny olive and touch paler though my current third pot is different to the first to and I will go back to XA if the fourth pot isn't like the first 2. 

 

2. Dark Earth, again to me looks spot on, has the very slight orangy red hue and not like chocolate unlike Humbrol 29 has been  (though the new reformed acrylic dropper looks pretty close)

 

3. Sky again, again GS, humbrol 90 was a darker and greener though I haven't tried the new one 

 

4. Medium Sea Grey, this is where I have a slight problem, at least as a post war shade as I always felt the current one has a slightly hint of blue to it which XA doesn't have, though always used it for the WW2 shade, which doens't look like it has a blue hint as Troy alluded to. 

 

5. Ocean Grey, shocked to discover it it shouldnt be blue as Xtracrylix have made it, its always looked right, I suppose because of the blue of the sky in photos enhancing the grey.  Same can be said for EDSG

 

6.  Pru Blue, again less blue and a tad darker in the chips, XA certainly looks spot on for the BBMF's PR spits 

 

7. Half reverse, XA Azure is darker, but also more blue than the chip. 

[Casey]

16 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

You may as well finish it if the hard part is done

Thanks for giving me a small push to finish it Here it is: