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Blue, Blue, My Love Is Azure Blue - and happily some of our paints are too 😀


John

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I haven't been able to find a pot of LifeColor Azure Blue, which I thought I had, but looking at the example in this post from Fozzy:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...st&p=577289

I see that it's claimed to be a match to FS 35231. That doesn't fill me with confidence, I'm afraid.

John

John, the last words by Fozzy in post #27 on that thread that you linked to are ".......here they are PVC'd up and undercoated........" which is what it looks like to me, grey undercoat, I think the Lifecolour jar was a handy something to prop them up with & probably coincidental that it happened to be Azure Blue. Maybe we've got it on the brain. :lol:

It just occurred to me the colour of the Lizzies legs may be irrelevant to your point, are you saying that FS35231 is not a good standard for Azure Blue? :unsure:

I just noticed on the Sky type S thread that a while ago you tried the Vallejo Pastel Green, I don't 'spose you've got the Vallejo 70902 Azure to try have you? It strikes me as being a bit too Blue but it would be interesting to see it against some colour chips.

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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From the colour chip photos posted at the top of this thread, FS35231 seems to be the best FS match to the RAF Azure Blue chip (while not being 100%).

I guess the question then remains how accurately the LifeColor paint depicts FS35231. :)

Assuming that it does represent that colour accurately then it appears that it would be the best commercial match to the RAF colour?

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John, the last words by Fozzy in post #27 on that thread that you linked to are ".......here they are PVC'd up and undercoated........" which is what it looks like to me, grey undercoat, I think the Lifecolour jar was a handy something to prop them up with & probably coincidental that it happened to be Azure Blue. Maybe we've got it on the brain. :lol:

It just occurred to me the colour of the Lizzies legs may be irrelevant to your point, are you saying that FS35231 is not a good standard for Azure Blue? :unsure:

I just noticed on the Sky type S thread that a while ago you tried the Vallejo Pastel Green, I don't 'spose you've got the Vallejo 70902 Azure to try have you? It strikes me as being a bit too Blue but it would be interesting to see it against some colour chips.

Steve.

Hi Steve.

It was the label on the pot I was looking at, I think Fozzy said his Lysander is undercoated with Humbrol 64.

I'm fairly confident that the LifeColor paint probably is a good match for FS35231, but that would make it a poor match for MAP Azure Blue as it's too grey and dark and has no violet hint to it, atleast not to my eye. You can see a photo of my FS595 fan against the RAFM chip in the first post on this thread.

I don't have the Vallejo paint you mentioned. I'll have a word with my friendly neighbourhood wargamer to see if he has it and can give me a sample.

John

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I see what you mean about the 35231. I would think that the aeromaster AB is probably close to that, as is my mix with the Hu25 ,Hu33 & Hu 64, leave out the Hu64 & its maybe not too far from that fresh clean slightly violet shade in the RAF Museum chart. Got any Hu25 John? :D

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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I'm fairly confident that the LifeColor paint probably is a good match for FS35231, but that would make it a poor match for MAP Azure Blue as it's too grey and dark and has no violet hint to it, atleast not to my eye. You can see a photo of my FS595 fan against the RAFM chip in the first post on this thread.

I guess different eyes see different things. Looking at the photo you're referring to, I can see that 35231 is a bit darker than AB, but not so much darker that I, personally, would lose any sleep over it. You could always add a touch of white which will not only lighten the colour but also tone down the "greyness" (which will make it look "more blue", which should bring back the violet you're looking for -- although to be honest I can't really see it myself).

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I guess different eyes see different things. Looking at the photo you're referring to, I can see that 35231 is a bit darker than AB, but not so much darker that I, personally, would lose any sleep over it. You could always add a touch of white which will not only lighten the colour but also tone down the "greyness" (which will make it look "more blue", which should bring back the violet you're looking for -- although to be honest I can't really see it myself).

BWP, While I can agree with your point of view, I do tend to think that if we're trying to get Airfix/Humbrol to revisit Azure blue, lets start with it as correct as possible. From a modellers point of view & taking into account weathering, batch differences, application methods etc etc, anything to 35231 would likely do & then again, its as well to know how good a match for 35231 it really is, I've seen some very approximate matches for FS & other stds, regardless of what manufacturers might say.

Mark, thats a stunning pic & probably the best I've seen for a clear shot of factory applied Azure blue, its great, many thanks.

Steve.

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Getting Hornby (or anyone else) to find a match for Azure Blue shouldn't be overly difficult. The RAF Museum library has an envelope, which is listed as a supplement to D.T.D.83A, and contains samples of Sky Blue, Azure Blue, Dark Mediterranean Blue, Light Mediterranean Blue, Extra Dark Sea Green, and Middle Stone. I would hazard a guess that it was used by Mr. J.M.Bruce, when he produced "British Aviation Colours of World War Two."

Also, according to the present-day listing, in BS381C, 104 Azure Blue does not have a wartime (known as "Aircraft Series") equivalent.

Edgar

Edited by Edgar
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BWP, While I can agree with your point of view, I do tend to think that if we're trying to get Airfix/Humbrol to revisit Azure blue, lets start with it as correct as possible.

I hadn't realised that was the aim. I thought we were just looking for an available paint that was a good match.

One wonders exactly what is going on when, amongst all the manufacturers who have attempted to reproduce the colour, it looks like LC have been the only ones to try the approach you tried: looking at an official reproduction of the colour chip and trying to match it wth FS colours. What colour do the other manufacturers think that they're matching? I wonder if they're just trying to match each other!

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I hadn't realised that was the aim. I thought we were just looking for an available paint that was a good match.

Don't worry, that was just the way the thread started, I was responsible as much as anybody for causing it to wander & in fact had to reread the first part to remind myself what we were doing here in the first case, & this is quite a well diciplined thread. :o

One wonders exactly what is going on when, amongst all the manufacturers who have attempted to reproduce the colour, it looks like LC have been the only ones to try the approach you tried: looking at an official reproduction of the colour chip and trying to match it wth FS colours. What colour do the other manufacturers think that they're matching? I wonder if they're just trying to match each other!

I think we've often asked ourselves this question, but then after a few colour threads one soon realises the the piece of string is of fairly variable length as it were. It would be nice to get this in a universally available brand which I would pick Humbrol probably is. I don't know about Aus but I've yet to find anyone in New Zealand carrying any Lifecolor & Polyscale & other than very restricted range of Testors/Modelmaster.

Steve

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I don't know about Aus but I've yet to find anyone in New Zealand carrying any Lifecolor & Polyscale & other than very restricted range of Testors/Modelmaster.

It was a little slow at first but they are gaining traction. Initially they were available from Frontline Hobbies (easy to order online) but now the full range is being carried by at least two of the stores in Melbourne (can't speak for anywhere else). I love them -- not only are they very good paints to work with, their "authentic" colours seem pretty good to me, and they are not much different in price to Tamiya, Humbrol etc. but offer 22 mL jars rather than the 12 mL of every other brand.

Of course, they're acrylic, if you're looking for enamels you're pretty much stuck with Humbrol or the limited Tamiya range. Not too many Modelmaster display racks around these parts that I've noticed (not that I've been looking for them).

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From the colour chip photos posted at the top of this thread, FS35231 seems to be the best FS match to the RAF Azure Blue chip (while not being 100%).

I guess the question then remains how accurately the LifeColor paint depicts FS35231. :)

Assuming that it does represent that colour accurately then it appears that it would be the best commercial match to the RAF colour?

I'm reasonably confident that the LifeColor paint is a good match for FS35231, and while it may or may not be the best commercially available match for RAF Azure Blue, it isn't a good match. RAF Azure Blue has a distinctly violet caste to it which is completely lacking in 35231, and indeed in any of the other paints tested so far. As Nick Millman said some time ago, none of them capture the essential character of the colour – it isn’t just a light blue. In fact I wonder if the habit of comparing almost every modelmaking colour to FS595 may not be at least partly responsible for this situation.

It’s certainly a puzzle as to why all the manufacturers seem to have got this shade so wide of the mark, given that samples are reasonably common. It will be interesting to see if Hornby take up the challenge.

John

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  • 5 months later...

Another contender weighs in, Vallejo 70902 Azure:

VallejoAzure.jpg

A nice strong blue, but a bit too dark and pure for the RAFM chip:

VallejoAzurechip.jpg

It's not close to anything I have in BS 381c, BS4800, RAL or FS595 and it's a bit brighter in real life than it appears on my monitor. Once again, it lacks the slight violet edge of the RAF shade.

John

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ran across this

HurriKZ295tropproductionline.jpg

colour balance looks reasonable for WW2 film. Interesting to note the shades of the colour depending on the amount of light on it.

Also of note it appears the gear legs and maybe wheel wells are done in azure blue as well.... note blue overspray on tyre as well.

HTH

T

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ran across this

colour balance looks reasonable for WW2 film. Interesting to note the shades of the colour depending on the amount of light on it.

Also of note it appears the gear legs and maybe wheel wells are done in azure blue as well.... note blue overspray on tyre as well.

HTH

T

Nice pic.

John

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ran across this

HurriKZ295tropproductionline.jpg

colour balance looks reasonable for WW2 film. Interesting to note the shades of the colour depending on the amount of light on it.

Also of note it appears the gear legs and maybe wheel wells are done in azure blue as well.... note blue overspray on tyre as well.

HTH

T

Well.....looking at all the areas in that photo .....just about all the shades talked about and shown in this thread are correct ... :o

which is probably why these discussions on colour go round and round ad infinitum ..!!!

nice find that photo by the way ...

Regards Trevor ... :D

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Well.....looking at all the areas in that photo .....just about all the shades talked about and shown in this thread are correct ... :o

which is probably why these discussions on colour go round and round ad infinitum ..!!!

nice find that photo by the way ...

Regards Trevor ... :D

The different "shades" probably just represent the different illumination the paint colour is being reflected under rather than different "shades" of paint (as Troy Smith already observed in the original post). You can see exactly the same thing on a model even though you painted it with paint from the same tin or bottle. Try looking at the colours on your model in the daylight from a window and then in a room at night with no lights on. If the colours look the same I'll buy you a beer.

The probability is that the paint on that Hurricane matched closely (or at least close enough) to the MAP paint standard Azure Blue. This thread was about hobby paints matching the MAP paint standard Azure Blue - or not. All the photo does is to tend to reinforce how far off some of the hobby paints are - as John has already demonstrated.

Edited by Nick Millman
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The different "shades" probably just represent the different illumination the paint colour is being reflected under rather than different "shades" of paint. You can see exactly the same thing on a model even though you painted it with paint from the same tin or bottle. Try looking at the colours on your model in the daylight from a window and then in a room at night with no lights on. If the colours look the same I'll buy you a beer.

The probability is that the paint on that Hurricane matched closely (or at least close enough) to the MAP paint standard Azure Blue. This thread was about hobby paints matching the MAP paint standard Azure Blue - or not. All the photo does is to tend to reinforce how far off some of the hobby paints are - as John has already demonstrated.

I think that is exactly what Trevor meant, the effects of light and shade on the percieved colour observed. This shows once again the almost impossible task of exactly matching colours from photographs, [ colour or B/W ]. The Azure shade under the fuselage almost exactly matches the colour chip in A&AP's "Britsh Aviation Colours of WWII", but that on the undercrriage doors is much to light, however, common sense tells us they must be the same paint from the same tin.

What a shame we couldn't all do as Ian Huntley used to, match our colours to the actual aircraft and store the results away in our notebooks.

Edited by Andrew Jones
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I think that is exactly what Trevor meant, the effects of light and shade on the percieved colour observed. This shows once again the almost impossible task of exactly matching colours from photographs, [ colour or B/W ]. The Azure shade under the fuselage almost exactly matches the colour chip in A&AP's "Britsh Aviation Colours of WWII", but that on the undercrriage doors is much to light, however, common sense tells us they must be the same paint from the same tin.

What a shame we couldn't all do as Ian Huntley used to, match our colours to the actual aircraft and store the results away in our notebooks.

Thank you Andrew.....that explains it better than I did, and was going to in a reply..... :)

Regards Trevor .. :D

Edited by sunshine coast
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I think that is exactly what Trevor meant, the effects of light and shade on the percieved colour observed. This shows once again the almost impossible task of exactly matching colours from photographs, [ colour or B/W ]. The Azure shade under the fuselage almost exactly matches the colour chip in A&AP's "Britsh Aviation Colours of WWII", but that on the undercrriage doors is much to light, however, common sense tells us they must be the same paint from the same tin.

What a shame we couldn't all do as Ian Huntley used to, match our colours to the actual aircraft and store the results away in our notebooks.

Well, yes, maybe, but until the colour photo "red herring" was posted this thread wasn't about "exactly matching colours from photographs" - it was about comparing real hobby paints to the real MAP Azure Blue chip which, frankly, doesn't require Ian Huntley. Even his findings are regularly argued about and disputed - here quite recently.

And the Singapore Blenheims thread was not about "exactly matching colours from photographs" either. The problems involved in doing that were clearly pointed out throughout. That was more about attempting to draw reasonable conclusions from the genuinely new information the photographs provided (and in the absence of any other information) and very interesting it was too, until of course you showed up and rubbished the effort.

"The Azure shade under the fuselage almost exactly matches the colour chip in A&AP's "Britsh Aviation Colours of WWII"" Actually it doesn't. The DE2000 difference calculation between the two is 16.1 where 2.0 or less equals a close match. The MAP chip is 4.1 PB 6.2/6.0, the darker colour in the image is closer to 6.5 PB 4.6/9.5. Which just goes to show that exactly matching colours from photographs is not such an impossible task after all - but whether the colours in the image are faithful to the colour of the original paint surfaces or the colour in the emulsion of the original photograph is another matter.

However, it does seem an impossible task to have a serious discussion about colour at Britmodeller without at some point someone intervening to say what a waste of time it all is, sniping at those who take an interest in it and starting a bun fight.

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The colour of the undercarriage door is, on my monitor at least, much closer to the chip in my copy of the A&AP book than the underside of the fuselage, which is significantly darker than the chip. MAP Azure Blue is not a dark colour.

John

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Another contender weighs in, Vallejo 70902 Azure:

Just thought what this info could be useful - Vallejo just released new paints in their ModelAir range.

Most interesting paint for this tread will be 71.108 UK Azure.

VALLEJO.jpg

image upload

I'm pretty sure what new UK EDSG and PRU Blue also will be interesting for Nick, John and other modelers :)

HTH,

Dmitry

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I'm pretty sure what new UK EDSG and PRU Blue also will be interesting for Nick, John and other modelers :)

Add the Mediterranean Blue for me as well, been looking for that! (now,whether it is close to the medn. blue the R.A.F. used we'll leave for another day....!!)

I wonder if the Model Air 'Azure' will be different in shade to the ModelColor one that John restarted the thread with....?!

As an aside, much as I really enjoy reading these colour discussions, I was wondering last night whether there's any point to them at all when it actually comes to model paint, as even if it was proved one brand was 100% dead on, the manufacturers then put their own hurdles in the way! Last night I was sorting out my paint stocks, trying to get them in some sort of order so I can actually find the paint I want when I need to use it. On other groups, I've read how Hannants take great care in matching their paint either to actual standards, chips or the paint itself where available. Great! IIRC, I've also read that they then spray the lids of the tinlets with the actual paint inside. Great again! How is it then, just as three examples, I have two tins of Xtracolor PRU Blue, the lids of which look nothing like each other, two tins of medium sea grey where the lids are totally different, & two tins of Barley grey where the lids are, yes, nothing like the same colour.....!!! The odd thing is (to me at least) it only seems to be greys/blues that are affected. The multiple tins of dark green, earth, tan etc that I have all seemed to look the same. But maybe that'll change when I look at them in daylight.....??!! And I won't mention how the 'same' colour in xtracolour & xtracrylix is often completely different too....!!

Keef

PS mentioning PRU Blue - that one in the Model Air colour chart looks a bit strange, doesn't it.....???

Edited by keefr22
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