SUITABLE COLOR DARK GREEN IN BATTLE FOR BRITAIN

[The original Kit Builder]

As has been said, RAF Dark Green is a quite distinct colour.

 

Although the specification of this colour has not changed since it came into service in the late 1930's, changes to the type of paint, from the original, to cellulose to the modern acrylic and two packs have changed the surface texture, which can be perceived as a change of shade.

 

In my experience, Tamiya XF-81, Hannants xtra color X-1 and its acrylic equivalents are the best matches in no particular order, being matched to MAP colour chips.

 

The earlier versions of this colour, prior to the change to safer paints in the 1980's, were more colour stable. the later versions have a tendency under UV to degrade, becoming more brown.

 

 

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

I must say that one of the first places I looked was the book "The Hawker Hurricane. A complete guide for the modeller. Modeller Datafile No. 2 from SAM Publications".

A publication not to be trusted,  neither is the same authors Airframe and Miniature book.  

Some is right, some is wrong.  Sadly the SAM book are old, the other is from 2020and the author hasn't learned much in the meantime...   Or read posts on here. 

 

The best guide to the Hurricane Mk.I available is the Wing Leader Photo archive

https://www.wingleader.co.uk/shop/hurricane-mki-wpa3

has a PDF sampler.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

On page 124 the colors and markings of this fighter are indicated and either I have misread or there is no color code indicated, using only the name and simply saying Dark Green or Dark Earth, for example.
Since the Spitfire MK I fought alongside him, I thought I'd also consult the same section of the SAM Productions Part 1 book dedicated to him

for the versions that use the Merlin engine, and something similar happens on page 131.
I kept looking and my next step was to take screenshots watching the movie "Battle for Britain" on my computer, which was very possibly a mistake because we forgot that at the heart of the matter a movie is a movie.

Many model are 'inspired' by the film weathering and gun smoke....    It's good for a movie, but not a accurate resource...

6 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

I also searched the following website, (http://www.daveswarbirds.com/bob/spitfire.htm ) dedicated to the Spit in the aforementioned film and both in one case and the other, the green color shown by the planes has a tone, let's say, something different from what we are used to seeing in them and that regardless of photographic qualities or computer monitor calibrations the green i see in those photos and screenshots seems to have that speck of blue to me. And this green, with a hint of blue, I have seen reproduced in certain models,

That would be Humbrol 30.   "Dark Green" 

Sadly Humbrol have been putting out this blue green since the 1970's, it was wrong then, it's still wrong now,  but for many modellers it's the 'right' colour simply as it has been recommended by Airfix since they went over to Humbrol colours.  

In the 70's is was sold as the "equivalent" of the Airfix M3 Dark Green, which was a reasonable match, being an olive green.

In the 1960's Humbrol 30 WAS and olive green though.

the fact Airfix STILL recommend the wrong colour and supply in their starter kits is ..... 

for far more than you need to know

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234989589-humbrol-30-is-there-a-use-for-it/page/2/#elControls_2313899_menu

 

6 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

so I thought that there may have been variations in tonality in the colors depending on the paint supplier at the time.

Not really.

 

OK, it's not helped by the Spanish paint makers not being about to match a colour to specification with "both hands and a map" 

 

This is not some lost series of tablets of ancient knowledge,  Though given the right balls-up the acrylic 'matches' are you'd think it was.

 

 The depressing thing is plenty of documentary evidence to say pretty much how a plane was painted 80 years ago, and what those colours were. 

 

This is by @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies, who runs Colourcoats and has done primary research on RN colours, making up samples from original paint formulas for example, and taking on board information from respected researchers.

 

I keep quoting this.   I do because it is the most useful bit of real world information on real paint I have read on here, and the more people who read and understand the better, and it contradicts some of the right cobblers I have seen posted on here.    

 

"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."

 

from

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

 

Note a few posts on a Youtube vid showing paint mixing from pigments.

 

 

Context, in ww2 the British army was using 8,000 tons of paint a year, and the Aircraft industry used far more paint than that. I think the UK made about 100,000 aircraft during the war,  how much paint does one Lancaster use?  They built over 7,000 etc etc 

 

The demand for green pigments was such that the RAF was given priority and the army and navy had to use other pigments, the reason why British tank swapped from Khaki Green G.3 to SCC2 Brown in 1942, the  base pigment was Burtisland Red, a waste material from the aluminium production process.

 

We are talking about vast amounts of pigment needed, let alone the other ingredients.    One reason was the USAAF dropped painting all together. 

 

And the colours had been carefully designed for the various jobs they needs to do.    

This Life magazine image, from May 1941,  on my screen gives a very good representation of the colours, and their how they look in juxtapostion.

 

Note the faces, grass, sky, roundel colours (dark blue, brick red, subtle orange hued yellow, which are what they should look like) are good representations. 

to sum up

 

Dark Green is dark olive green.   Not browny or bluey  

Dark Earth is brown with a subtle green hue,   not reddy, not beigey, or chocolaty.    

Sky is a very pale yellow green  - many model paints make it a bit 'muddy'  

Medium Sea Grey is a grey with a very subtle purple-blue hue

 

Yes, paints did fade and weather,  but many WW2 planes had very short service lives.  

 

On 10/11/2022 at 19:46, Andrés S. said:

FS-34079 green. But I have seen some photos where it seems that it is not that color.
Is it possible that I am wrong and could other dark green colors be used such as FS-34092 for example?

the reason for the use of FS595 codes is simply that FS595 color chips are fairly easy to get sets, especially in the USA, and a an FS595 reference can give you an idea of the color. 

The problem is that what should be "close to FS595 XXXXX" becomes  Matched to FS595 XXXXX......     Even US WW2 colors are not matched by FS595 colors.

 

Finally, you may wish to say what type of paints or brands you can get or use, which may make suggested matches easier.

[Corky]

Wow a Doctorate paper on Dark Green.... who would have thought.😉

That is some great information and discussions . Thanks!

Edited November 12, 2022 by Corky

[Ed Russell]

12 minutes ago, Corky said:

Wow a Doctorate paper on Dark Green.

Indeed @Troy Smith should write a book................ 😀

[Andrés S.]

18 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

On 11/11/2022 at 14:04, Andrés S. said:

so I thought that there may have been variations in tonality in the colors depending on the paint supplier at the time.

Not really.

 

OK, it's not helped by the Spanish paint makers not being about to match a colour to specification with "both hands and a map" 

 

Hi.

 

I was not referring to the Spanish paint producers for modeling. I was referring to the paint producers who supplied the RAF, as was the case with some RLM colours.

 

Thank you, it was a great and instructive explanation.

 

I think I have already chosen the brand and reference that I will use.

 

Andrés.

[Andrés S.]

Hi all.

 

Taking as a reference the photograph provided by Troy Smith of a Spit, which seems to be very reliable regarding colors, I have carried out experiments with a white plastic spoon.
I have come to the conclusion that the Tamiya XF-81 is the green if not perfect to represent the Dark Green in the photo, yes very very close. Regarding the Dark Earth I have made a mix and although I think I should refine it a point I think I'm on the right track.

 

Thanks again to all of you, especially Troy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

Andrés.

 

 

[Casey]

15 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

I have come to the conclusion that the Tamiya XF-81 is the green if not perfect to represent the Dark Green in the photo, yes very very close

It is.

 

Here are spectrophotometer readouts of both (RAF04 is referring to the fourth paint chip on British Aviation Colours of World War Two publication)

 

 

It has difference of 1.02DE which is considered a very close match, but it is for some reason satin. I thought at first it was something wrong with my paint but is listed as semi glossy on some sites (http://filia.com/da/543343). This site also contains Tamiya SDS'es so they have pretty good information there. Gloss meter readouts are in remarks section, measured in Gloss Units at 60deg gloss meter. GU 2.9 is full matt while GU 30.8 is satin.

 

The match is also metameric in wavelengths humans are most sensitive to, so difference is noticeable in different light conditions.

 

Good news is that based on its SDS Tamiya uses PY13 (Dairylide Yellow), PO34 (Pyrazolone Orange), Titanium White and Carbon Black to achieve this mix - That means - no green pigments there - @Troy Smith

 

15 hours ago, Andrés S. said:

Regarding the Dark Earth I have made a mix and although I think I should refine it a point I think I'm on the right track

 

Here is my mix if you need some inspiration

 

RAF002 - Dark Earth - Flat
    Suggested using total of 10 parts (DE00: 0.34)
        XF-4 - Yellow Green: 4
        XF-10 - Flat Brown: 5
        XF-12 - J.N. Grey: 1

 

And here how it looked for me (on top of same insert from the book mentioned above)

 

It also produces metameric match.

 

HTH!

Edited November 14, 2022 by Casey