The Little World

Or The Colour That Time Forgot. The most accurate recreation of something that never existed outside a paint designer’s cheese dream. It has no FS number but that’s okay – IPMS approves of it.

The question of the right shade of puce to paint a Percival that has pancaked in Portsmouth has always been a bone of contention…and the dogs of the modelling world have chewed it clean. We are just hoping they’ll bury it in the back yard.

We simple modellers are not helped by the labelling on the paint jars – indeed we’re not helped by the fact that there are 45 different makers of paint and they all have proprietary mixes of thinners and cleaners but none of them actually intermix. The days of the Humbrol tinlet and bottle of turpentine are well and truly gone.

Ah, well, I suppose if we resort to the colour call-out on the instruction sheet it will save us. The fact that it doesn’t match any known image – even the picture on the top of the kit box – is immaterial. if the instruction sheet says it is right, it is right. The people who point out that the kit maker makes paint and would sell you anything they turn out in pots are just being cynics.

For my part, I think the only really safe way to get an authentic colour for a model is to go to a museum where a preserved example of the thing is sitting. Take a screwdriver and prise off one of the panels and bring it home. Match the colour under plain daylight and make a note for future reference. If it needs to be a mixture of shades, make a good big 5-gallon tin – you never can tell when you’ll want to make another model of the same thing.

If you are an armour modeller you may need more than a screwdriver in the museum.