The Little World

Not about religion or viruses or the economy. These things cannot be determined by debate or belief – they just have to be fought over with artillery. I mean who do you believe about paint colours?

Specifically, the paint colours printed on call-out sheets in model kits. Every kit has something that pretends to dictate the colour of the model – even if it is just a faded box-top painting. The better kits have multi-colour printed sheets that detail the scheme and specify the paint needed. Sometimes this is the FS system and sometimes just the paint maker’s numbers.

None of these decisions are necessarily correct. If you compare the numbers and colours on a sheet that mentions several makers – as I have done recently with a very good Academy kit – you’ll find that there are some surprisingly wide variations in what should be identical. Try pinning down olive drab or azure blue, for instance.

What to do:

1. Pick a maker whose paint you like. Choose this on the basis of consistency, coverage, ease of use, and overall past success with it.
2. Follow the colour call-out recommendations with these numbers.
3. Be satisfied and stop peering over the fence at everyone else’s lawn. It will be greener than yours, of course, but not the correct green. Not if you believe the internet modelling forums…

Didn’t like that version? Try this one:

1. Select paints from a number of makers to go on the same model.
2. Disregarding whether they are enamel or acrylic, water-based or solvent-based, or matt or gloss…paint away. Brush or spray as you like, but do not clean the brush or colour cup between jobs.
3. Be satisfied with the result. The interaction between different layers of chemistry will make your model stand out from others. Or possibly melt…

Still not happy? Goodness, you people…Well here’s another recipe:

1. Find a picture – in colour – of an example of the airplane you wish to model. It’s best to take your own pictures in a museum, but you can get a pretty good selection from Google anyway. Whatever it is, if it is sitting there leaking hydraulic fluid into a pan on the floor, it is real.
2. Match your colour to what you can see in the museum. The curators of the place may have painted it 100% accurately or they may have been drunk and colour-blind. Your task is not to criticise them – it is to match the thing that you can see. Be careful with the lighting of the pictures as this affects what you see on the screen.
3.  Be satisfied with the result. It may not look like the airplane of 1943 but it looks like the airplane of 2020. You can console yourself that the 1943 one leaked hydraulic fluid as well…

If you are still dissatisfied, consider donating that emotion to other people. There are always modellers who will be unhappy about colour or finish or detail in their own models and they are also going to try to feel bad about yours. Let them bear that burden alone while you just get on with the next model.