Scaling Color

av8rmongo · Post by **av8rmongo** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:36 am

Can anyone point me to a website dealing with "scaling" color down to appropriate tint? I'm doing up some WWII 1/2400 ships in appropriate patterns with Poly S paints but they seem to be darker than what I would have expected. I'm open to the possibility that the colors are accurate its just my perception of what "should be" that needs changing.

Paul

DrBig · Post by **DrBig** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:54 am

Paul, I paint my ships with White Ensign Paints & they look fine without lightening. When I used to paint with Humbrols with what I thought were the correct colors, they were dark. The WEM's were lighter. So either they are already lightened, or the colors themselves were light. However, I don't blackwash my ships, which may make a difference.

What ships are you painting?

av8rmongo · Post by **av8rmongo** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:55 am

DrBig,

Thanks for replying. I just painted up USS Ranger and USS Yorktown (Yorktown class). Yorktown is in MS 12, the Ocean Gray (5-O) might or might not be okay straight from the bottle. The one picture I have found of Yorktown in this measure is B/W but the tones I think are close. I have a color drawing that seems to depict the Ocean Gray much lighter then it comes out of the bottle I have.

Ranger is MS 22 and the Haze Gray (5-H) seems way too dark or too blue when I look at sample pictures. I know that sometime in '44 the base colors shifted away from blue to a more neutral gray for all colors so that might be what I'm running into here. Maybe the photos I'm seeing are of the neutral gray Haze Gray and the Haze Gray I have is the blue based gray of the early war. Who knows.

Paul

cbovill · Post by **cbovill** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:39 am

Paul you have a perfect excuse to post some pictures of your ships here for us - any excuse to see completed work is good for me!

Chris

DrBig · Post by **DrBig** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:51 am

Paul, the carriers are indeed dark ships. The recent issue of "Model Art" No. 21 (available from Pacific Front) has the 3 Midway carriers (1/700 scale) and the Enterprise & Yorktown are really really dark. The Hornet less so. I would encourage you & anyone else who is interested in the early war carriers to get issues 20 (Jap Midway CVs) & 21 (US Midway CVs). They are in Japanese but the photography is excellent, and these guys take their research seriously.

Mark