Hi all,

I am modelling a Revell 1/48th scale P-47 and could do with some help on the colours for this aircraft please. I mainly paint in enamels so I would need the number of the paint with the manufacturer's name and what they call the actual colour.
Olive Drab! now I know there are at least two maybe three 'different' (how can that be anyway!) colours of this colour but I would like to know the one that is closest to the paint colour used on this aircraft.

Neutral grey! I can't seem to find any grey that has the neutral name in it so please again what colour would you all suggest? again paint manufacturer and number would be ideal.

Many thanks in advance for all help given.

Paul

Hi Paul and first of all welcome.

When you state that you use enamels I take it that its Humbrol, well unfortunately Humbrol don't do a '43 Neutral Grey' it would need to be mixed, for the '41 Olive drab' you need Humbrol 66.

Here's a link to the very good colour cross ref charts of IPMS Stockholm

Paul, Olive Drab was designated during the period of 1939 through 1945 as ANA 613. When The USA military switched over to a single standard for all the services, it developed the 595 Federal Standard color chips. Olive Drab was designated FS 34084.

If you look up on the chart from the link that Luciano provided, you'll find the color chart. Just go down to the 1939-1945 USA colors till you find ANA 616 Olive Drab. You'll see that the proper color is a humbrol mix.

As for different colors of the Olive Drab, the color did change through different eras.

If you don't want to mix the color, what other paint lines do you have access to?

Joel

Don't forget that Olive drab faded very quickly, so unless your model represents an aircraft straight from the paint shop you won't want to match the standard colour too closely. Some paint brands offer "faded" olive drab, or you may want to mix in a little white to adjust the fading to your liking.

Luciano, Joel and Jessica,

Thanks for all your speedy replies. That's a bit of a bummer with neutral grey as I don't really fancy having to 'mix' paint to get the colour. Is there not a 'closeish' match to neutral grey? (I am not your average 'rivet counter' so a near perfect match is good enough for me especially as the only people that will see my models will normally my wife and best mate! (whom also builds models) Humbrol 66 I do have though and as Jessica has said the OD would have faded quite quickly so surely any close shade must be ok to use!

I suppose I could use Tamiya paints if I really had to! I have never really got on with acrylic paints to be honest though as I have always used Airfix (when I was small boy building Airfix kits) and then Humbrol enamels.

Paul

Humbrol have two colours that they call Olive Drab, H 66 and H 155. Don't know what H 66 is exactly as H 155 is the one usually quoted as being Olive Drab. It is a brownish shade of Olive Drab. There is also H 159 Khaki Drab that may be suitable.

The correct name is Neutral Gray with an 'a' because that is how they spell grey in the USA. It is the name of the colour so is a proper noun and should always be spelled with capitol letters and an 'a' instead of an 'e' in grey. Not everyone does this so if you go looking for Neutral Gray you need to look for both gray and grey because if it has been spelled correctly it might not show up in your search, especially if it is an American site.

My cross-reference charts have Humbrol H 126 as Neutral Gray. Humbrol call it US Medium Grey.

Alternatives are:

Xtracolor. They have three Olive Drabs, X111 Olive Drab, X112 ANA 613 Olive Drab and X113 Faded Olive Drab.

X133 Neutral Grey.

They are available from Hannants but they will not ship paint only, you have to order a kit as well. They are gloss colours and have a reputation for being very slow to dry.

http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/index.php?product_category_id=&product_division_id=&manufacturer_id=8272&code=&product_type_id=&scale_id=&keyword_search=&setPerPage=25¤cy_id=

There is also White Ensign Models Colourcoats.

They have at least two Olive Drabs and Neutral Gray with an 'a' in their range. Colourcoats are my choice as I also prefer enamels over acrylics. Some people don't like them but I get on fine with them. They will ship paint separately, even one tin.

https://www.whiteensignmodels.com/c/US+NavyUSAAFUSMCUSAF/127/3/

Paul,
If you have access to Tamyia or Testors Model Master paints you need to look for;

Model Master Olive Drab (FS34087) aka ANA 613 bottle #1711, spray #1911
Tamyia Olive Drab bottle #XF62. spray #AS06

For Neutral Gray Model Master is bottle #1725, spray is not available.
Tamyia bottle is #XF53 and spray is #AS07.

Altho I know you where asking about enamels, Tamyia makes a great acrylic paint that is easy to work with and of course clean up after.
Good luck and please post some pictures of your build as you go along. I'd be very interested on how you got along.
Later

Thanks for the English lesson From an Italian!!

X133 Neutral Grey. !!!!! shouldn't that be Gray!!

Jessica, you're absolutely correct in that most paints used to paint aircraft, armor, etc. during the war faded rapidly due to the various environments they had to "live & work" in. The issue that I have with just using any lighter shade of OD (as an example), is that your presuming by presentation that the paint faded evenly throughout the entire aircraft, which is just not the case. Color modulation helps to achieve those various tone differences. Areas of the aircraft that weren't subjected to directly sun and weather conditions, would be darker compared to fully exposed areas. And even the fading looks best as a somewhat blotchy effect, rather then a solid mono tone presentation for one complete area such as the top of a wing.

When I did some research on OD back in my armor days, I was surprised to find out that originally it was made simply by mixing two pigments: black and ochre. The choice of ochre and ratio to black is what caused the color to vary so much till the ANA standards were adopted, and under war time conditions, batch to batch did vary to a degree.

Going back to your premise of a lighter or darker shade then the FS chip, one also needs to take into consideration that a model is much smaller then the real size aircraft/armor. Viewing the same subject lets say 48 feet away, it would look a shade or so lighter. Using that point of reference, one can use a lighter color with justification.

Finally getting back to model paint, the Tamiya Acrylic OD XF- 62 is darker then then the Testors Model Master OD #4728, yet both claim to be matches to the FS 34084. Tamiya also makes a XF-58 with they call Olive Green, which is green based, not brown based, and is for other foreign services. Go figure.
Joel

Yes, but that is the way Xtracolor/Hannants spell it. One could say that it should be Xtracolour not Xtracolor.

BTW I'm half Polish, not Italian.

Or even Extracolour
I'll get my coat.

I do apologise for presuming your nationality from your name.

By the way thanks for your help with the colour numbers for Humbrol and more specifically for the Neutral Gray as I would have never of known that H126 is a good match for it.