The Little World

Resign yourself – you may have made a fabulous model of a P-61 or a Lancaster or a Mosquito and a great deal – or all – of the thing will be a very definite black colour. But as soon as you show it at any exhibition, someone will tell you you’ve used the wrong shade of black…

Of course if it is not a night fighter – if it has camouflage or unit markings or any shade under the sun, you will also be told how wrong they are. You may have prepared the paint for your model by chiseling the real stuff off a real airplane in the Air Force museum and running away with it before the attendants could catch you. You may have ground this paint superfine and applied it perfectly. It may be the 100% real paint – but someone will always dispute it. You see, while people may have turned away from religions and political systems and historical loyalties…they have new leaders to follow – the makers of model paints.

Go down the paint aisle of your local hobby shop – careful that you do not stumble over worshippers on their knees in front of the racks – and count how many separate families and systems there are. When you figure that each one of these – exclusive from all others in thinner and primer and finisher and smell and probably flavour – is a universe of its own and the manufacturer wants you to gravitate to the centre of it, you can readily understand that a simple idea like ” black ” is not going to get you very far.

You’ll not be helped by the helpful makers who claim that their paints are exactly what the Air Ministry specified – or for that matter the US Federal Standard or the German RLM system. You ain’t the 1940 AM, USFS, or RLM to check on them. And as every worshipper sees his chromatic religion as being the One True Colour, they’ll all fight you whatever choice you make.

I think it accounts for the interest in weathering and fading that we see on many models. If you make it foul, no-one can cry fair…