What Grey ?

[Guest]

Sorry Robert, but RLM is the acronym for the Luftwaffe Ministry. For vehicles it should be RAL. Dunklegrau RAL 46 (later renumbered RAL 7021) was the base coat.
In reality it's a very dark grey, almost black. For scale purposes we usually lighten it to the aforementioned bluish grey.

Scale colour is a fascinating subject and you are quite right to point that out. This is where getting the 'correct' colour is in fact 'incorrect'. The difficulty with lightening colours is what to lighten them with. You should not lighten with white or darken with black as you can change the actual colour rather than just lighten it. A very good figure painter tried in vain to get me to fully understand this principle until he simplified it with the example that if you lighten red with white, you don't get light red, you get pink.


In figure painting, lightening and darkening is mainly to achieve believable highlights and shadows. So, as an example (don't quote me on this as I am no figure painter) a red can be mixed with a light flesh or yellow shades to create highlights. Although this does change the colour, red and yellow being orange, the highlights are 'glazed' on with very thin, translucent layers until a highlight is achieved.


The problem with lightening a 'correct' colour to achieve a scale effect it is generally better to lighten using a lighter version of the same colour. I believe that the change from the 'correct' Panzer Grey to a very blue grey has been progressive as many photographs in magazines have shown a blue tinge way more than it should, to the point where people trying to emulate these builds have lightened with a blue grey. In reality, it is quite possible that the blue was introduced in the magazine printing process and that they look bluer than they would have done in the flesh. However, it started a trend and many 'blue' German tanks and vehicals later,it became accepted as 'right'.


I would suggest that if you get the 'correct' Panzer Grey' that you lighten it slightly with a normal light grey for 1/35, and lighten a tad more for 1/48 and even more for 1/72-1/76. All greys in certain light will take on a blueish tint without, in fact, being blue grey. It is one of those things that does not happen with other colours, such as sand or green.


I have no doubt people will disagree which is fine as there is no one or even right answer. The main thing to achieve is the look that you want, it's your model after all.

[takeslousyphotos]

Scale colour is a fascinating subject and you are quite right to point that out. This is where getting the 'correct' colour is in fact 'incorrect'. The difficulty with lightening colours is what to lighten them with. You should not lighten with white or darken with black as you can change the actual colour rather than just lighten it. A very good figure painter tried in vain to get me to fully understand this principle until he simplified it with the example that if you lighten red with white, you don't get light red, you get pink.
In figure painting, lightening and darkening is mainly to achieve believable highlights and shadows. So, as an example (don't quote me on this as I am no figure painter) a red can be mixed with a light flesh or yellow shades to create highlights. Although this does change the colour, red and yellow being orange, the highlights are 'glazed' on with very thin, translucent layers until a highlight is achieved.


The problem with lightening a 'correct' colour to achieve a scale effect it is generally better to lighten using a lighter version of the same colour. I believe that the change from the 'correct' Panzer Grey to a very blue grey has been progressive as many photographs in magazines have shown a blue tinge way more than it should, to the point where people trying to emulate these builds have lightened with a blue grey. In reality, it is quite possible that the blue was introduced in the magazine printing process and that they look bluer than they would have done in the flesh. However, it started a trend and many 'blue' German tanks and vehicals later,it became accepted as 'right'.


I would suggest that if you get the 'correct' Panzer Grey' that you lighten it slightly with a normal light grey for 1/35, and lighten a tad more for 1/48 and even more for 1/72-1/76. All greys in certain light will take on a blueish tint without, in fact, being blue grey. It is one of those things that does not happen with other colours, such as sand or green.


I have no doubt people will disagree which is fine as there is no one or even right answer. The main thing to achieve is the look that you want, it's your model after all.

That's interesting Graham..... I was planning to lighten the blue grey with a lighter grey to dry brush some highlights........ and your last paragraph, I reckon is the most important bit....... If anyone ever wants to count the rivets on my models they can if it makes them happy.

[Guest]

I read somewhere that the problem with mixing colours to lighten or darken them is that the added colour is not what you think it is. For example, there probably is no practicable pigment that is truly black (although soot comes to mind). The underside of a Lancaster bomber was often painted black but in fact it can look very very slightly dark blue. This might be because the pigment used is actually a very dark blue. This might cause a black which is lightened with white to end up distinctly bluish.


I am not expert in this and the above might be rubbish in detail, but the basic idea is worth thinking about.

[Guest]

If you didn't do armor and stuck to cars life gets easier, you can paint any car any colour you like, no one can say it's wrong, as long as you title it custom, one of the reasons I dont (or rarely )do anything war related is the painting problem, it's not just one colour, if it's Africa it will be different to Europe and of course the age of the model will be a different colour (not so much with armour but ships, as they serve over such a long time scale) ignorance is bliss and I love living in ignorance

To me, that's where the interest & fascination lies. There's more scope when doing armour or aircraft than cars - even though I'm a confirmed petrolhead


The thing is, there's very little decent colour photographic evidence about actual WWII machinery. Much of what is available has been doctored or "enhanced", so it's unreliable.


The quest for colour accuracy seems to be quite impassioned around German RLM shades. Look at the discussions about RLM 74 or 83!


At the end of the day, no-one can say definitively that someone else is wrong.... good times!

[Guest]

If you are using revell aqua I always use blue-grey I think the colour number is 79. Once you apply washes it comes out just right.


Scott

[Guest]

I read somewhere that the problem with mixing colours to lighten or darken them is that the added colour is not what you think it is. For example, there probably is no practicable pigment that is truly black (although soot comes to mind). The underside of a Lancaster bomber was often painted black but in fact it can look very very slightly dark blue. This might be because the pigment used is actually a very dark blue. This might cause a black which is lightened with white to end up distinctly bluish.
I am not expert in this and the above might be rubbish in detail, but the basic idea is worth thinking about.

That's interesting. I remember someone doing a Lancaster some years ago, not sure if it was on this forum or not but they added a hint of red to the black to stop it being 'black'. You couldn't see the red as such but it made it more 'realistic' in scale. I think it was that build that started me thinking about colour more as, at the time, I would never have thought of doing that.


I still like to have a good idea of a base, or starting point, colour as in my question about British Infantry webbing in a different thread. Once I am happy that the start point is about right, the fun comes in shading and highlighting it.

[Guest]

Here's a selection of RLM greys but Dunkelgrau is the standard RLM from what rcords I can retrieve [ATTACH]142679[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]142680[/ATTACH]

Its also worth remembering that each and everyone of us are seeing different versions of these colour swatches on-screen. This is why I bought Vallejo's hand painted colour chart - too many frustrations with buying paint based upon swatches online and when they arrived they weren't even close to the swatch, amd this was true even on my MacBook Pro monitor, which has been professionally calibrated.


Plus Graham makes good points about colour and scale, that I have wittered on about here in the past, its pure conjecture really, the only empirical method of finding out if we got the colour right, is to travel back in time to the individual tank we are modelling, and compare. And even then we'd need to make adjustments in saturation to allow for scale!


As folks say, it's your model, you make the judgement based upon as much info as you can muster, which is scant, at best !

[Robert1968]

Its also worth remembering that each and everyone of us are seeing different versions of these colour swatches on-screen. This is why I bought Vallejo's hand painted colour chart - too many frustrations with buying paint based upon swatches online and when they arrived they weren't even close to the swatch, amd this was true even on my MacBook Pro monitor, which has been professionally calibrated.
Plus Graham makes good points about colour and scale, that I have wittered on about here in the past, its pure conjecture really, the only empirical method of finding out if we got the colour right, is to travel back in time to the individual tank we are modelling, and compare. And even then we'd need to make adjustments in saturation to allow for scale!


As folks say, it's your model, you make the judgement based upon as much info as you can muster, which is scant, at best !

I agree with you 100% John ( also the supply of paints for the Axis was always disrupted and never always the same manufacturer of paint.

[Guest]

I probably mentioned this before, as well, but I saw an Apache at the Suffolk Show last year, and almost every panel was a different shade (and in a couple of places, Hue). It was well battle worn, and covered in crude hand-painted touch ups and basically looked very rough. I assumed that it was a practice piece for ground crews to work on, but the pilot took the hump when I asked this!

[Guest]

I agree with you 100% John ( also the supply of paints for the Axis was always disrupted and never always the same manufacturer of paint.

Yup! A Dulux Colour Match system it ain't.


I wish I'd made a note of this, but in the last week or so, I have been reading up on Tigers, and read somewhere that paint was supplied to crews to re-paint their vehicles, and was in a solid state that they dissolved in gasoline (sic).


One can only imagine the variations of colours in these circumstances!!!

[Guest]

Haha it always makes me chuckle, imagining the German army or airforce was some kind of hippie commune!


The idea that vehicles were painted by individual crews "in the field" has become so oft-repeated that it's become accepted fact.


The truth is that like any totalitarian state, the individual played very much second fiddle to the needs of the state. Paint codes & production of paint was very strictly regulated.


For German vehicles, paint supplies were allocated on a divisional basis & then passed down the supply chain by regiment to the various companies.


Almost invariably, painting took place at field workshops, usually by a dedicated crew or crews. I remember reading a first-hand account of a Panzer IV crew who had to repaint all the tanks in their company not long after being transferred from Russia to Italy. Camouflage patterns did vary from tank to tank, but not by much. Often the company commander would specify the overall scheme.


After the major change in August 1943 from Dunkelgrau to Dunkelgelb, vehicles could still be seen in the old colour until they were cycled to a field workshop.


One of the reasons that we often think all German vehicles had different schemes is because generally only one example of each scheme appears in books. So a Panther from one particular division might well look very different from another of a different division. But most likely, all the Panthers in their respective units looked much the same.


Even now, different brands of (supposedly) the same colour are different. Look at these swatches of RLM 83 - 5 different shades from as many different brands!






No wonder modelling can be an expensive hobby!

[Robert1968]

I find it simular to painting figures. Masterbox give you an example of the colours they depict you use ( Vallejo or lifecolor)


All well and good


You then do your research and look at actual uniforms ( say preserved in a museum) back to square one with shades and what not tru one to get the correct Color ( Khaki is not just Khaki ) and wood brown/ leather ( new leather or worn leather etc etc ?? There are so many variations. Whose right at the end of the day.


Robert