I need help i am currently finishing the building process of a t55 kit and i need some advice as to what exact humbrol or tamiya paint colour would be the closest match to a modern russian tank. I have heard of people using olive drab and variouse shades of dark green but im not sure as to what exact colour is best. All help would be much apreciated!!!

Model Master "Russian Armor Green"

Ineed to know are there any alternatives to model master that are fairly close like tamiya or humbrol??

Tamiya's Dark Green is fairly accurate once weathered.

I find Tamiya's Dark Green too dark. I mix it about 4:1 with Tamiya's Flat Green. You may want to play a bit with the ratio, until it's to your liking. I've just used the Model Master one mentioned above, and that seems the easier way, if you can get it, of course.

Cheers

Olaf

hi , do not get to hung up on soviet colour , i wish i could post a photo i have of over 50 russian tanks lined up , and to be honest hardly any match the next one to it. when you take time, weather, sunlight , how it was mixed and by whom all into the equation , who is to tell you if you have got it wrong, too many so called experts on colour just do not know what they are talking about. at a recent mv rally i along with several other model makers saw a landrove come on site , it had 3 shades of british green and two shades of black and that was only on the sides , when it parked up a fouth shade of green was seen on the front. so my advice is to hell with the experts and do your own thing. cheers ian

Well, at least MM Russian Armor Green looks very close to what we had on BMPs and KSHMs in my ROT unit in Russia. I do agree with you however that color may vary noticeably for vehicles in combat zone

thanks to all the replies so far ill try have a look for model master paints at my local model shop aswell as the tamiya dark green.
ps does anyone know if the serb or bosnians used the same green as the russians in the kosovo conflict.

Just one more thing that affects the appearance of the colour is the possible groundwork. For example if the soil is reddish, any green objects get even more greener. In that case it could be wise to tone it down towards greyish or brownish.
Mixing exact colours is not my cup of tea, IMO appearance of the model comes before the scientifically right colours.

(++)

Toni

That depend on the time you'll tank will present. If you'll plan to do it in the standart for late 50-s -- mid 80-s color you can choose betwen Humbrol H150 and H105 -- both colors are clos to the real and looks nice after weatrering process (also you can add some yellow to the initial color and lightly overspray all the model's upper surfaces to show the sun fading). For the later monochrome and camo patterns is better to use Revell's SM 361 (in color charts they show it as an Humbrol H105 analog but IMHO Revell is a little bit yellowish and lighter a bit). As for the tanks in Yugoslavia -- they seems to be a little darker shade and a bit more bluish -- something like the East German armor color. So maybe it will be good to add a couple drops of blue to the paint.
Best regards
Lis