And there you have it, just what's wrong with the hobby. Debates about the shade of paint used or the color of the floor of the cockpit of this or that. I call this the Hyperscale Effect.

Q) How are real airplanes/tanks/trucks/ships painted?
A)With a spray gun.

Q) What effect are the trying to acheive?
A) Covering the entire aircraft/tank/truck/ship in the mandated color(s).

|:(

LOL...not always!



Cheers,
Eric

Hi Eric

That has to be the classic example of the difficulties in representing Invasion Stripes on a model - whether you're using decals, masks or whatever - a "bad paint job" on a full-sized aircraft is damned hard to do convincingly on a model without it looking like shoddy modelling... (and look at the state of the rest of the camo and markings on that Spit...)

All the best

Rowan

It demonstrates the desirability of documentary evidence which is sometimes necessary for shutting judges up.

Sorry, just retured to this topic...

Yes, I forgot sponges, mops, rags and brushes as possible ways in which airplanes were painted.

JUDGES! We don't need no steenking judges!

Eric,
I just read your original post. What you call the Hyperscale effect of the proper color, I would call trying to use the actual called for color not just close. If the cockpit was originally painted interior Green, Green Zinc Chromate, Yellow Zinc Chromate or even Olive Drab would be incorrect.

Color variation or modulation tries to accomplish two different things. In scale the actual colors just look to dark, so often the modeler lightens it up for a scale effect. Modulation refers to how the color tonnage changes from shadow to bright light. We try to copy those changes with variations in the tone of the paint.

How an aircraft was painted is not always a simple subject. Originally they were painted at the factory via a spray gun. Then changes often were made when they got to their Theater of Operations. Again, usually by air gun. For the Allies, Invasion strips were applied with brushes, mops or just about any means the crews could come up with. After all, they had to paint thousands of planes literally overnight.

We as modelers, or at least me as one, tries to duplicate a aircraft in field operations with a "used but not abused" look. That's my personal preference. I do use ANA an FS chip numbers as a starting point for what color should be used. Research often shows variations as paint suppliers produced paints the best they could, but the final colors varied greatly. Here, documentation is important, so it's not just good enough.

Joel

The way I see it you can either paint a model to be a true copy of the original, as if magically reduced in size, or you can paint it using different tricks with varying color nuances to fool the eye, and make the model make the impression as if a photo of the real thing was made 3D.

I don't think either way is "wrong" or "right", but the look of the model will be different in each case.