I was wondering what the best colors were for a two-tone green and earth Spitfire I and a Lancaster. I haven'e built a WW2 British aircraft for some years and was working on painting my 1/72nd scale Spit with first Tamiya and then Model Master paints. The Tamiya Dark green appears (to my eye at least) muted and their Dark Earth too red (almost a rust color), The Model Master Dark Earth also seems quite muted. Have the interpretations of the RAF colors changed over the last 15 or so years (and these colors are accurate) or is their a better choice out there?

Thanks,
John

If you can find Xtracolor or Xtracrylix paints, they're blended to the British Standards specifications.

Tamiya has recently, not sure how long actually, release a set of new colors, RAF Dark Earth, RAF Dark Green, RAF Ocean Grey. They are closer to the actual colors, I have used them and they look good.

All major hobby paint manufacturers have RAF colors in their line up. Every one has a preference on what they like to use and of course what it available at your LHS.

Check out this chart here:

http://www.cybermodeler.com/color/bs381c_matrix.shtml

Thanks

Thanks but I might give them a try. The Tamiya colors I have, well, they're not even close I used to use Model Master but they changed their color drastically.

Hopefully not, since British Standards took no part in producing wartime colours; it was all done by RAE Farnborough, from a department run by the delightfully named Professor Ramsbottom.
As an example, there's an Azure Blue in the B.S. range, which has been faithfully copied by some manufacturers, but which is nothing like the wartime colour; this was produced by Farnborough, in response to a request, with sample, sent from Middle Eastern Command.
Edgar