Why can't all the worlds paint companies agree on a common paint code?

[SprueMan]

You know the problem:

Every single manufacturer insists on having their own code.

Usually, just a sequential code of adding a number as soon as they include the paint to their assortment.

There is no rule that as colour 41 is grey, that 42 will be grey-green or a darker grey. Nope. It could be pink. Or could even be a clear coat or a wash or something.

Each kit manufacturer also has their own preference to what they add as a paint guide. Great stuff. So we modellers have to spend time searching for paint chips and charts, asking for advice on forums and often ending up with a "well perhaps" or "I think" "to my eye".

Which, honestly, in our current digital words is nonsense.

Why is it still impossible to find out what the Danish Starfighter / Draken colour was, or what the F/A-18 greys should be. (and googling the paint code gives different results from googling the paint names...)

 

The Federal Standard (FS) system exists and yes, it is an American system, there are also CMYK standards, Pantone colours and what have you.

Why can't all the various paint makers agree on a single standard and adhere to it?

People have paint preferences according to the brand, so adopting a common standard will not hurt any brand, only strengthen them.

The same is also true outside the modeling world.

I am told the bedroom should be re-painted in "magnolia"... what on earth is "magnolia" for a paint code? (It ended up being blue..)

 

Why do we have this problem in the 21st century?

 

Thanks for listening to my rant. I have stepped down from the soapbox

Edited May 13, 2023 by SprueMan

[treker_ed]

Because a lot of them existed well before the advent of global and digital systems. Not only that but each paint manufacturer has their own 'brand names' for their paint colours except for of course the colours in what would be each countries paint system that the government departments would use. Germany have RAL,  UK have BS381c & BS4800 (plus some others), US has the FS system, other countries have their systems. 

When it comes to brands, it's about protecting their commercial interests, not cooperating with competitors.im sure there are others out there who can explain or put this in better words than I have used, but the ultimate gist is protecting the interests of each others IP.

[Casey]

We had a system that had been human readable, easy to imagine and in use. It was called Munsell. How many people are still using it nowadays?   It was invented WAY before digital era - he started work in 1898 and first published Color Notation was in 1905.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system

 

This standard is based on human vision, and it is the basis of modern digital color standards like CIELAB.

 

CMYK or RGB are not a device independant standard sand should never be used to communicate color values really (means: the result depends strongly on a device not on a color value. Whatever RGB you see on screen is also based on what your device shows you and you could configure it to display pink instead of white if you wish so...)

 

And Munsel color is still in use there or there!

 

For fun, I also provided Munsell notation values for paints and colors I've measured on those forum, like this:

 

 

But there is also convenience factor. It is easier to think of color 71.062 as '62' than "I need a 7P/8.6/1.6  gloss metallic now".

Edited May 14, 2023 by Casey

[RobL]

If your bedroom ended up blue, then the paint wasn't magnolia...

 

FYI magnolia is generally a broad range of off-white/cream colours, much like British Racing Green is a broad range of deep, rich greens...

 

One of the problems I currently find, as I often paint Games Workshop figures based on examples that used older Citadel paints, is matching the older paints to current paints or finding equivalents.  Because Citadel paints have changed in shade over time or their equivalents (like Vallejo) have.  The change in shade over time is another problem to add to the lack of a universal system.

 

Personally though I find that scale modellers tend to get too hung up on paint matching, just go with what looks right...

Edited May 14, 2023 by RobL

[Casey]

55 minutes ago, RobL said:

One of the problems I currently find, as I often paint Games Workshop figures based on examples that used older Citadel paints, is matching the older paints to current paints or finding equivalents.  Because Citadel paints have changed in shade over time or their equivalents (like Vallejo) have.  The change in shade over time is another problem to add to the lack of a universal system.

I'd more say it is about the rules and regulations that forbid usage of 'unsafe' pigments anymore. So, companies that want to produce things as safe for young modellers had to stop using historic pigments - which means you cant physically make the same colors anymore. Adult artists paints are still an exception but it seems modeller adults that do not lick brushes are not a target for companies mass producing paints for figurines and airplanes.

 

Also, pigments change especially natural ones, so without changing the color recipes colors drift from batch to batch.

 

(change means: new batch of same pigment may be different, once they are made they are more or less stable, depends on the pigment too)

Edited May 14, 2023 by Casey

[ColonelKrypton]

11 hours ago, RobL said:

FYI magnolia is generally a broad range of off-white/cream colours

 

Actually there are blue Magnolia's.

 

Which, speaks to the original posters comments regarding colour names. In the commercial consumer world it is usually about marketing. Brand XYZ markets a new colour called Magnolia which is is a violet blue and the two names quickly become associated so that the casual consumer expects to find a violet blue colour when asking for "Magnolia".

 

It is a much easier sell when calling your products "Passionate Peach", "Goblin Green", "Gory Red", "Dead Flesh" or "Dusty Rose" rather than by something more technically correct.  Commercialism, branding, and making something their own - Pantone is famous this.

 

I am so use to being able to pick up artists paints and seeing on the label what pigments where used to create that particular color, for example Golden Fluid Acrylic Naples Yellow Hue contains the pigments PW6:1 / PW6 / PY42 / PY83(HR70) plus it describes the paint as being "semi-opaque" which tells me a lot about that particular paint. You will never see this information on craft or hobby paints but can so helpful.

 

Those pigments are described using a pigment code. P simply means Pigment, W is white, Y is yellow and the number is just it's place on the list.  PW6 is titanium white which has different properties than PW4 which is zinc white and PY42 is a different yellow than PY83.  

 

If you thought that black was simply black you would be mistaken, https://www.artiscreation.com/black.html#.ZGDtF3bMJPa  will give you start down that dark path.

 

Be careful though, colour and pigments are interesting and fascinating subjects and if not careful you could find yourself spending much time following those interesting paths. But the more you know, the easier it is to navigate the many choices.

 

I do hear your frustration. Why can't it be simple? Simple question, complex answer. I am afraid it is just the nature of the beast.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

[bentwaters81tfw]

It was much easier when the world was in black & white.

[bootneck]

17 hours ago, SprueMan said:

Why can't all the various paint makers agree on a single standard and adhere to it?

That would not be a cheap operation.  Will you pay for it to be undertaken?

 

Mike

[malpaso]

Actually Magnolia paint (in the UK at least) IS a standard colour to BS4800 “Magnolia BS08B15”.  In theory all makes should look similar subject to batching etc though I’m not aware of the allowable tolerances in BS4800.

 

Widely used by developers for new housing as it’s cheap (in trade BS4800 ranges) and the beige/cream is not likely to offend prospective buyers or tenants…

[SprueMan]

4 hours ago, bootneck said:

That would not be a cheap operation.  Will you pay for it to be undertaken?

 

Mike

Well, it has been proven time and time again that standardisation helps all equally.

It is a lot easier and faster for a company to create a paint if they know exactly what paint to make.

So whether it is a house owner buying 5litres for a bedroom or a government ordering 2000 litres for a hospital or 20000 litres for an aircraft carrier it makes a lot more sense to have a common standard so that "grey no. 123" is the same, no matter the manufacturer.

 

The US FS standard exists so it is easy to go to tender with a request of 20.000 litres of grey 123 and no matter which company wins the contract, that grey will fit the old grey perfectly.

So, the US tax payer paid for the FS system, and the US tax payer profits from that it being easy for companies to compete.

 

If the various paint companies would gather round and create a global color system, then both they would earn from it (from making their paints more available) and the consumer as well.

Think of how the USB standard has made all the various computer devices work together.

 

...And modellers would be able to keep their sanity a little bit longer too

 

[Admiral Puff]

23 minutes ago, SprueMan said:

 

...And modellers would be able to keep their sanity a little bit longer too

 

Assuming, of course, that there was any to lose in the first place ...

[Casey]

21 minutes ago, SprueMan said:

If the various paint companies would gather round and create a global color system, then both they would earn from it (from making their paints more available) and the consumer as well.

It is called Pantone if you like standards where you can patent a color and are fine to be happily limited to only those colors they offer. On the other hand, they give exact recipes for their proprietary pigments that work with their machines that will give you one of those colors.

 

Unluckily, there is almost no matches for aircraft colors there

 

Or use CIE color coordinates if you just want to just communicate color.

[Circloy]

On 14/05/2023 at 17:03, bentwaters81tfw said:

It was much easier when the world was in black & white.

and 50 (thousand) shades of grey.

 

On 14/05/2023 at 00:00, SprueMan said:

You know the problem:

Every single manufacturer insists on having their own code.

That's not the real problem, the real problem is the description after all who goes to the supermarket and buys a packet of  5 057753 08207 >  *

 

Who cares if BS381c Brunswick green is Humbrol No.3 & Cherry paint No. 1768 as long as the name accurately refers to the relevant standard. AND, its a big and, the manufacturer(s) were all consistent with the stated standard with every batch, after all thats why the standard exists.

 

Accuracy in naming removes any doubt about the colour. (Unless the've messed up)

 

Consistency is not hard to achieve, after all I can walk into any automotive paint supplier and ask them to mix Ford Taunus blue & you'd be very pushed to tell any batch from any other regardless of the paint shop.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 * for the curious 'Wheat biscuits'  Other products are available

 

[Graham Boak]

Bar in mind that every modern paint, even when standardised, will not necessarily be a match to a historic standard, and the paints used then will not necessarily be identical from different manufacturers. US Olive Drab is perhaps an extreme case.  Then there is the different appearance if over a different undercoat: the proper standard if primed properly but different again if just painted over a previous coat.  Different materials require different paints - cellulose-based ones on fabric will look different to supposedly the same standard colour in a synthetic on aluminium.  Let's not go into weathering, different between the same colour from different manufacturers because they have used different recipes.

 

The constraints of commercial manufacturing strike again - when it comes to model paints different tins of the same colour by the same manufacturer will not be consistent over time.  Comments about health standards only apply to the tip of the iceberg.  Consistency costs money - even when the materials originally used are still available, and are actually still consistent themselves in all matters.

 

As pointed out, Munsell exists - but is pretty difficult to get hold of and astronomically expensive.  Even this this only presented samples of the whole colour range and you would be required to interpolate.

 

If you want an easy answer, you're in the wrong hobby.  But then this is true of pretty well everything.

[Alan P]

On 5/14/2023 at 12:00 AM, SprueMan said:

Why do we have this problem in the 21st century?

I blame the internet.

[CFster]

I think people spend way too much time obsessing over something that can look different depending on what time of day it is…and what year it is. 

[Casey]

55 minutes ago, CFster said:

I think people spend way too much time obsessing over something that can look different depending on what time of day it is…and what year it is. 

Ins't that a definition of modelling?...

[Admiral Puff]

39 minutes ago, Casey said:

Ins't that a definition of modelling?...

I would have called it THE definition of modelling ...

[Bullbasket]

10 hours ago, CFster said:

I think people spend way too much time obsessing over something that can look different depending on what time of day it is…and what year it is. 

Exactly!! This subject rears it's head every so often, under different headings, but is still basically the same theme.  My modelling interests lie mainly down just two avenues; Brit/Commonwealth WW2 and IDF 1947-1980. I usually use Tamiya paints, and for each topic I'll use Mike Starmer's mixes for the first, and IDF Modelling site for the second. But again, I'll use those as a basis only as apart from when they have just come out of the paint shop, they are going to change in tone. Sun, sand, wind rain, frost, they are all going to affect the tonal appearance of the colour. There are other factors as well that will affect the tone, not least of which is how the paint was mixed in the first place. I have two bottles of IDF Sand Grey from two different manufacturers, and they are completely different shades, one being very greyish and the other having a red/brown tinge. Which one is correct? That's why I will continue to mix my own.

 

John.

[CFster]

19 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Exactly!! This subject rears it's head every so often, under different headings, but is still basically the same theme.  My modelling interests lie mainly down just two avenues; Brit/Commonwealth WW2 and IDF 1947-1980. I usually use Tamiya paints, and for each topic I'll use Mike Starmer's mixes for the first, and IDF Modelling site for the second. But again, I'll use those as a basis only as apart from when they have just come out of the paint shop, they are going to change in tone. Sun, sand, wind rain, frost, they are all going to affect the tonal appearance of the colour. There are other factors as well that will affect the tone, not least of which is how the paint was mixed in the first place. I have two bottles of IDF Sand Grey from two different manufacturers, and they are completely different shades, one being very greyish and the other having a red/brown tinge. Which one is correct? That's why I will continue to mix my own.

 

John.

And in some lines you get different colors from bottle to bottle…shouldn’t happen but it does. 

[Ed Russell]

On 5/15/2023 at 7:47 AM, SprueMan said:

Think of how the USB standard has made all the various computer devices work together.

Hehe

 

There are 14 different connector types, with USB-C being the newest. There is also the micro-USB, most notably known to charge older phones, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB type A and B, and several others.

https://www.avadirect.com/blog/the-different-types-of-usb-ports-and-their-uses/#:~:text=There are 14 different connector,and B%2C and several others.

[Giorgio N]

I think there are a few things that seem to be constantly forgotten in these discussions...

 

Standards: a standard like FS.595 or BS.381 is just a catalogue of colours, nothing more than that. They are all catalogues put together by entities of some kind (be they associations, private companies or public bodies) that allow potential users to easily choose a colour for whatever need they may have. They sure make life easier in many cases but they are not complete or anything. Moreover, they are historically linked to a certain area and to certain specific uses.

As standards are the result of the work of different entities, it makes sense that each of them would produce a different list of colours even when some of these may be very close. And more, since standards are often used in the definition of colours to be used on items supplied to public or commercial users, it makes sense that colours from a different standards may be incorporated within another standard with a different code appropriate for the system used by that specific standard.

One more thing to keep in mind: paint standards are not acts of law! Everybody can make their own "standard" including whatever colours they want. It's up to the industry then to accept the use of such a colour list or not.

 

The point of view of the user: any user who may need a colour to paint a real aircraft/tank/ship/cabinet of whatever may find the colour they need in an existing standard or they may not. If they don't, they may request the creation of a new colour or create one themselves. This is how many current US military aviation colours came from, they were invented by the user through experimentation. It was only after the colours were invented that they were included in a standard. Something different but with similar results happened to British military aviation colours in WW2 and later; none of them came from a commercial standard, some of them were incorporated at some point in BS.381c... but they had existed before for a few decades.

Or alternatively, the users may find the colours they need not in one but in a number of different standards ! So the supply of say a military aircraft may require the manufacturer to paint this in some colours from FS595 and some colours from RAL.

The same constant introduction of new colours occurs in the commercial world a; a car company or a fashion firm may develop some new colour for their product and these colours will of course not be present in any standard. To them this colour will have a name and a code that will fit whatever internal procedure they may have so clearly every private companies who need to develop a new colour will care zero about what other companies would name the same colour, it's their colour and any code would have to fit their internal system.

The new colour may also be protected in some way to prevent it from being used by others, so one more reason not to fit this in someone else's coding system. It's something we modellers generally don't care about but it's a serious issue for example in the world of fashion... and if we think we're being nitpicking when it comes to checking colour accuracy in our hobby, I can guarantee you that this is nothing compared to the fashion world ! The deviation they accept from the intended colour is in some firms extremly small and rejection rates due to excessive deviations are very high.

 

The point of view of the paint manufacturers: of course whoever has to supply paints will need to give them some internal catalogue number and they will clearly use codes that fit their own internal cataloguing system, without any regard for whatever systems may be used by others.

The same paint companies will likely offer colours made to a number of standards depending on their typical customer base and these will generally indicate what standard they are made to. At the same time the same companies are free to produce paints in whatever colour they like! A company may well develop a new line of colours for whatever use if they feel that their customer would be happy to buy paints in these new colours instead of existing ones. Afterall a new colour may give this company a competitive edge in respect to the other companies, why should they not do it and offer what everybody else is already selling ?

 

Putting all the above together, it's clear how in the "real world" we'll never have one single common way to catalogue colours for all manufacturers and users.

From out point of view as modellers the only way we can get through the myriad of names and standards is to understand the subject and  the history of the camouflage schemes. Of course everything could be simpler if modelling companies gave accurate colour information in their instruction sheets but this not always happens, for two main reasons:

1) some companies simply don't care too much about this. They will just give vague indications, sometimes proposing the closest colour in whatever paint range they prefer and sometimes just saying dark green or light grey.

2) some companies have their own line of paints to push. For this reason they will approximate whatever the real colour to the closest colour in their own paint line. Sometimes this works well (say recent Airfix instructions suggesting Humbrol paints for modern British types, for which Humbrol carries most if no all colours), sometimes it gives weird results (Italeri in the '90s proposing some pretty different FS shades from the Modelmaster line for WW2 Luftwaffe types).

 

P.S.: I have probably used the terms colour and paint without much care in this post... however never forget that a colour is one thing, a paint is a totally different story! Paints are made to match a certain colour but also have their own properties and they can easily differe in these even when reproducing the same colour. In military applications in particular these properties can also affect the way paints look in different conditions, that is one more problem when trying to understand a colour from a picture