Green moss paint

[laurie82]

Hi everyone , does anyone know of a green moss colour in any of the paint ranges. Any ideas and recommendations would be much appreciated.

[Kingsman]

For what purpose / vehicle/ nation?  Or do you just mean for scenery?

[laurie82]

Hi kingsman, I’m currently building a copperstate Canadian armoured mg carrier.  The kit colour details only just give basic colours I.e moss green , black etc,no colour range shoutouts.

[Kingsman]

Then the instructions - presumably CSM's - are entirely wrong.  Nothing in Commonwealth service in WW1 was green as chrome oxide pigments for greens were not widely available.  The colour would have been Service Colour, often uselessly described as Khaki.  This was a greenish brown colour but no-one knows exactly what it looked like because there were no official colour swatches and no codification of paints.  Only recipes for mixing up dry pigments with white lead in linseed oil and turpentine with a plasticiser like shellac.  So you get a rough idea of the colour and no more.  Which means that no-one knows what it should look like with any accuracy.

 

Greenish brown is as close as it gets.  The pigmentation of the WW2 SCC2 Brown was similar but is perhaps a little too brown.  The early WW2 brownish Khaki Green 3 is perhaps a little too green.  Something in between these 2 is in the right ball park.

 

This factory model of a MkVIII tank at Bovington is one of only 3 known surviving original-paint vehicles, the other 2 being the MkIV and Medium A in the Brussels Royal Army Museum.  Notice that the colour is more brown than green.

 

I actually quite like the AK Interactive British Uniform colour for this, AK3082 or AK11438 in their Gen3 range.

The colour that MiG sells as Moss Green for WW1 British tanks (no idea where that strange name came from) is much too green - almost indistinguishable from their Khaki Green 3. 

  

 

AK Interactive have a British WW1 colour modulation set which looks quite good, if you like that finishing method.  The AK4042 base colour in this set is in the right ball park.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Kingsman
Saved too soon

[laurie82]

Hi kingsman, wow you certainly have given me something to consider. I had thought about a lightened olive drab not realising that green wasn’t used.The colours you suggested I.e more towards brown do seem a more logical choice.I shall be checking out the AK paints. Thanks for your help.

[Kingsman]

Olive Drab is itself not a green either, in WW1 or WW2.  Chrome oxide pigments were just not available in enough quantity.  Hence why the UK switches to SCC2 Brown with clay pigment in spring 1942 until early 1944.

 

In WW1 US Quartermaster's OD is just ochre in white lead: a brown - apparently once compared to "pig slop" (what comes out of the back end, not what goes in the front.....!).

 

In WW2 US OD No9 was pigmented with ochre and Lamp Black and was again a brown, although with a greenish hue.  The USA had moved away from using linseed oil and white lead paints in the 30's for automotive etc paints in favour of nitrocellulose enamels. Many model paint manufacturers get this colour very wrong, especially with "modulation" sets which all seem to be true greens.  A visibly greener shade of OD with a satin finish was introduced later in 1944, but it is unlikely that any vehicles finished in this made it into service in Europe in WW2.  The pigmentation did not change but a new paint formulation and the satin finish altered the reflectance.

 

WW1 paints would also have had a satin finish BTW as it was not then possible to make either high gloss or flat matt finishes.

 

Olive Drab, like Khaki, is one of those entirely meaningless paint colour names / descriptions as there have been so many variation over time and across different countries.  Context is key.

 

But Service Colour (a greeny-brown), Khaki Green 3 (a brownish green) and OD No9 (a greenish brown) are actually all not a million miles away from each other.  When does a greenish brown become a brownish green?