What have I done here?

[stona]

I don't think trying to exactly match original colours is very helpful either. I do think a knowledge of the original colours is useful in trying to get your model to look right. It's a model, not a full sized aeroplane, and this is definitely a more artistic than scientific endeavour.

To my eye, and in those slightly dodgy photos, the green is too green, almost blue/green on the Spitfire, and not 'olive' enough on both models. The Vallejo Dark Earth looks much too red, but that's just one man's opinion

I don't usually give a view on the colours on someone else's model....but you did ask!

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

I don't usually give a view on the colours on someone else's model....but you did ask!

Indeed I did! I'm just surprised by the lack of contrast, admittedly it's winter and I don't have a lot of light to play with so it does look worse on these photo's, but the Hurricane is still really poor to the eye. So, question to you then, what colours (and brand) did you paint this Spitfire with? (FANTASTIC job by the way!)

Because the contrast in this picture is good - admittedly, you had light to take the photo with, which I'm sure helped!

[Guest]

I have used the 71029 but matched that with 71016 for green. But there is not much difference between green 16 or 12.But I use a white to lighten the colours to suit the scale. But have found these colours to be reasonably representative of the true colours.

Well, tried that on a busted build (also the Mk I Hurricane!):

On the right wing (as if you were sat in the cockpit) of the part painted plane, we have dark earth with 2 drops of white, and panzer olive (71096). On the right hand wing, we have out of the bottle dark earth and US Dark Green (71016).

Contrast is better on the right wing, but I'm still not happy with it. Going to have to do more testing.

I'm starting to wonder, if I hadn't started with Humbrol paints and accepted that as how it should be, whether I'd be overly bothered by the lack of contrast in poor light...!!!

[stona]

Mike those models of the 'dog fight double' are painted with the now soon to be defunct White Ensign Colourcoat enamels. They are 1/72 scale and I intentionally increased the contrast of the colours on both models by lightening the lighter colours (Dark Earth and RLM 71 respectively) more than the darker colours. That's what I really mean about being artistic rather than scientific. I just went until the colours looked right to my eye.

Maybe the fundamental difference between this and Vallejo, Lifecolor etc is that the paints I used, before lightening, shading etc, were good matches for the original colours having been explicitly manufactured to be so.

Also the photo is taken in natural daylight with a decent compact digital camera. It has to be a decent camera (Canon S100) because my photographic skills are minimal to put it mildly

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Mike

To give an example of colours in models making.

The first photo is of a Lysander in a museum. The second and third are my Lysander to my colours. I used Vallejo 12 and 29..

I mixed white (which is the sum of all colours except black which is not a colour) with both.

What the photos do tell is that neither is the actual depth of colour which they came out of the factory.

So the answer as far as I am concerned is unless it looks like the colour I want on my shelf, which will look right to me, it is back to the mixing pallett.

By the way lighting is important. I work under white light yellow lighting gives a yellowness to all colours even white as it then becomes not white. How you achieve the colour you want using what ever colour is your choice. There are no rules.

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Do not get depressed about all of this it is a journey I had and I am sure many others and you are going the right way about it.

Laurie

[Guest]

I can't really agree with that. A softer edge might make a more pleasing artistic effect, but in fact the demarcation of the upper colours was tightly regulated by the Ministry. Many believe that masks were used to speed up the spraying process, and there is much anecdotal evidence to support this at the Hawker factory.The camouflage demarcations would have been tight when the aircraft left the factory, whether or not masks were used.













What happened later, if an aircraft was repaired and/or re-sprayed is less certain, and there is certainly evidence for some somewhat softer demarcations.



This was less common than you might expect. I've had to really search my files for a good picture of a softer demarcation.

As always, the best guide is a good reference photograph.

Cheers

Steve

Interesting. Thanks for that. Next time when I do my spit Mk IX I will try that out.

Thanks, JOhn