I am just wondering what people out there use for a "recipe" of "Dark Yellow" as called for in many instructions such as the Dragon Panzer IV G I am building right now. I prefer to use Tamiya paints for airbrushing for a couple reasons but their Dark Yellow doesn't look right straight out of the bottle. Anyone have a favorite mix they'd be willing to share with me? Preferably Tamiya as it is abundantly available at my local hobby shop.

I like Tamiya XF-60. But I mix it 90-10 with buff just to lighten it up so filtering and weathering doesn't darken it too much.

Tamiya Dark Yellow is just a bit too green in my opinion. I put a tiny bit of clear red into it to offset that. I probably need to lighten that further, but I haven't done a Dark yellow vehicle in a little while...

I never felt that way about Tamiya,but Modelmaster,now that looked like split pea soup to me !!!

Hah! I just basecoat using the Tamiya spraycan TS-3 I believe, and leave it up to the weathering to sort the rest.

I believe the criticism is that the out of bottle colours are not light enough? Are we looking for a Tamiya 'Buff' level of lightness, but with the touch of yellow?

I like to mix the Tamiya Dark Yellow with Buff and Deck Tan using a ratio of about 60% Dark Yellow, and 20% each Buff and Deck Tan.

This makes for a fairly light base color, but I think this is necessary to compensate for the "scale lighting effect" and leave some room for post-shading, filters, weathering, etc. Watch out using blues and greens for filters, though, as too much or either will bring this color right back to the original Tamiya Dark Yellow.

Armorama::PzKpfW V Panther G

Just my .02, though. This is one of those contraversial topics that everybody has an opinion about, and unless you fall on the side of perfect prototype color match, there's no absolute answers. (And even what is a perfect prototype match for German WWII Dunkel Gelb doesn't have an answer that 100% can agree on.)

A lot depends on your finishing "style" and the techniques you use after the base coat is applied.

HTH,

I agree with Mike. Thats real close to my mix and ratios. but it also depends on the vehicle im painting. Ill adjust the mix accordingly. Also my 2cents.

Gary

Hi

For dark Yellow used as dunkelgelb I like to use a few different ones, that way no two models look alike as they probably all varied a little, depending on where they where built or whan they where built or how long they had been built.

I use the following

Enamels

White Ensign, its a good colour but a little too dark
Xtracolor, its too green
Model Master, this one is quite good
Humbrol 83 this one is quite good
Humbrol 93, this one is also quite good but a little orange.

Acrylics

Vallejo Model Color Dark Yellow, this one is too green
Vallejo Model Air Dark Yellow, this one is quite good
DOA Dunkelgelb, this one is quite good
Tamiya XF-60, this one is too yellow and too bright but is perfect after an overall filter of a dark brown oil wash.

Those are the ones I use

Paul

Hi there,

I don't yet have a 'favorite' dark yellow, but from this thread page, https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/131182&ord=&page=13, (take a look about 1/2 way down the page), a recommended Tamiya mix is as follows, and I plan to use it on my Tiger. Compared to an alternate dark yellow done on prior Tiger in that same thread, this mixture is significantly lighter, and is therefore more amenable to filters, washes and weathering:

2 parts XF-60 Dark Yellow
1 part XF-59 Desert Yellow
1 part XF-15 Flat Flesh
1 part XF-2 Flat White

This morning, I finally got around to mixing up the 2 parts XF-60 Dark Yellow, 1 part XF-59 Desert Yellow, 1 part XF-15 Flat Flesh, 1 part XF-2 Flat White, and it looks really good! I don' think I'll have any issues with using this mix for any German yellow in the future!

Curtis,I just used that same mix on a Puma.I am happy with it also,here's a pic
And with some washes applied,dark brown and green
You can see that it did change a little,but if you look at the forward engine cover,that's the original color.
Thanks again for the help with the Mervava color.Jeff T.

Jeff,

Cool! Your Puma looks really good. Are you planning on using this as a base for other camo, (red-brown and green) or is it going to remain completely dark yellow? Glad I could be of some help (even if I was only passing on info that I 'stole' from folks who did the real work!) You've beaten me to the punch, since I have yet to use the color myself. Glad to see it works, though. Maybe later today I'll use it on the road wheels of my Tiger, since they need painting independent of the rest of the tank.

By the way, if you get around to using that Merkava Tamiya mix , I'd like very much to see how THAT looks on a vehicle, rather than just a color patch, as that's another use (for me) that's probably way out in the future. I'm confident of the mix that that color is perfect, though!

Curt

Well, I did paint my Tiger road wheels today, using the 4 color recipe, and I must say that it turned out great, looking a lot in person like Jeff's Puma, given the vagaries of images posted on a computer screen. I think it will do very well as a starting point for filters and washes. And, a huge difference between this yellow and the sand yellow used on my modern Challenger 2, though looking at the color in the bottles, I would not have been able to tell that the differences would be as distinct. I'm learning a lot as I go along, for sure!

There is A LOT of variance to the particular shade of Panzer Yellow. When they took apart the 251 with the short barreled 75mm at the Patton Museum there were all sorts of shades of paint on the different internal components. Clearly different parts were made at different factories with each plant mixing their own version this color even though each was trying to follow the published paint formula.

It was only when the exterior got its' final shot of paint did all the exposed parts come to be the same shade.