I've seen many paint charts on the internet, and comparison charts between Humbrol, Gunze, Tamiya colors, .... whatever.

These paint charts are very, very useful and I want to thank those that made these for their efforts. After all, these come in very handy for a semi-novice modeller like me.

But, these charts have 2 major shortcomings:

A. they compare a colornumber of one manufacturer with a 'more or less' the same color of another brand. In most cases Humbrol makes the link.

B. There is in most cases no link to the colors that one can find on the real aircraft, or AFV, or ship ...

What I would like to see is an objective paint-manufacturer-independant color numbering system. This independant system could then on the one hand be linked to the paint of the various manufacturers and on the other hand to the colors used on "real life" airplanes, AFV...

And we don't have to go far to find a good system. in the computer world colors are identified by hexadecimal numbers. If my info is correct then there are 64 000 000 color identifications over the whole color spectrum available with this system. For sure, we don't need anything better and this color definition is understood by any computer and all the photo editing software on the planet.

This would make that photographs taken under well known circumstances (lighting influences the shade of the colors) could become the true basis for choosing a particular paint and we would no longer depend on the recommendations of a given manufacturer.

Could you e.g. imagine that photos published on armorama, taken in a WWII museum, would lead to exact color identification of uniforms, AFV, bags, weapons, sandbags, ...

The already available paint comparison charts could, of course, be used as a first basis for developing the objective chart.

I am interested in going deeper into this subject provided that we can share the work with a group of people.

Does anyone feel like setting up a working group or campaign???

Or has this been dealt with already?

Erhh well, good luck....

First of all, a lot of museums have a habit of s***ing up the colors.

Secondly as a hobby, I work with the real stuff and boy, oh boy are you gonna be in for a dissapointment. Paint two tanks in OD and after a couple of months they look a totally different shade of green (ok,ok OD then). And I not even going to touch the subject of German dark yellow .

And about the computer colours... place 2 monitors next to each other and let them display the same code of color and you will see that even those aren't the same (settings, age, make,...)

So color charts are helpfull yes, but it wil always be "compares to", never "is exactly the same as".

And even paint producers can't sometimes even produce the same color in different batches of a color...

I'm sorry to be so negative, but that's just how it is.

Kris

Ola

I personally never pick a color because a paintchart says so. I usually pick a color because it looks alright. OD and Fieldgrey can actually almost be every color of green. Due to wear and tear the tones differ a lot as Kris already stated.
I once saw a really nice picture of about 9 german fieldblouses, All the same type, but none the same color. ranging from Almost grey to lightgreen and darkgreen. Same goes for dessert yellow etc etc.
I often even don`t use the paint called OD, or Dessert yellow. I always mix in another color to get another tone.

Paint charts are nice but I actually don`t use them that often. More as a ref for the Humbrol numbers but nothing more then that.

here are a couple of links for you for color reference using other systems..

#1 is the Federal Standard system cross referenced with model paints.

Federal standard cross creference chart

there is also federal standard divided up by country colors here also

lUrban Fredriksson's Color Reference Charts


[url=http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/stuff_eng_colorcharts_germany.htm] Reference Charts Germany


the section on german colors also gives RAL and RLM to Federal standard colors.. (RAL and RLM were german standard color system)

for all military stuff actual colors varried.. I basicly use whats close and try to vary the base color a bit so not every thing I do looks like it came of the same assembly line. as long as your close the only one it will bother will be the rivit counters.. cause they don't have anything else to do anyways..

I can see where you are coming from, but I'm not sure it really matters that much. Francois Verlinden is very clear on this subject. He says in one of the "Verlinden Way" books (Vol 1, I think) that he gets very frustrated by modellers that argue over the exact shade that the paint on a tank "should" be. He argues that the colour of a model depends on real life paint batches, the age of the vehicle, where it has served and the length of time it has spent in the field. This is backed up by studying the many methods of painting and weathering tanks in "olive drab". The models all look amazing (obviously, being from Verlinden studios ) but the colours and methods used to paint and weather then vary tremendously.

Let the artist in you fly free: if it looks right - it is right! :-)

This appears to be a hot topic, so I can't resist throwing my 2 cents in as well :-)

Paint charts are merely a guide. These are mostly meant for the beginner, although for folks building parade ground models they are also handy. Most modellers of an intermediate level plus pay scant attention to the paint charts, as well as painting instructions in the kit itself.

I feel it is always better to consult your own sources and match colours using these. Hence the importance of building up a good reference library.

Hai,

Well, thanks for all the comments. I was a bit dissapointed with the first comments shooting me down as an uncivilised "rivet counter". Seems like this is the modellers equivalent of "pathetic nerd", isn't it?

All together, your reactions say: "it is not that important".

But you are contradicting yourself immediately with "when it looks right, it is right". And is is clear from your reactions that modelllers do pay attention to e.g. the shades of the uniforms.

Or, you do care about realistic shades and colors, and you are aware that it is not as simple as "tank X is painted in color Y".

Now, with a lot of experience, spending a lot of time going to see the real things in musea, airshows, ... buying books full of photo's and having a large collection of paints at home, it does get easier to decide which paint is right.

But for the many beginners, or those exploring an unknown domain, it is quite difficult.

I am currently working on a series of soviet airplanes (I give details later) and I do not want to discover after having finished 6 airplanes that my choice of "light blue" used on 4 of these is to bright, to dark, to... As all of you say: it has to look right!!!

Now we have charts that say humbol x is +/- equal to gunze y. another one comparing humbrol to testor or tamiya colors.

What I am suggestiong is to add a chart saying that humbrol x = #123456 (the hexadecimal representation of a color as used in photoediting software) and the same for all other available colors.

That way we get an paint manufacturer independant definition of the available colors. Not comparing them to each other but to a worldwide accepted de-facto standard.

I do believe that, certainly for beginners, it would make it easier to decide which paint to choose, not only for models but for bridges, buildings,...

And with some care one could use electronically available photo's to make a first investigation of the shades on a plane or AFV.

All this not to be pathetically precise on something which differs a lot in reality but to help getting the "shade right" on objects that we have never seen.

Just think about it.

Well, I like the concept and the idea behind it, but...

and sorry if I sound to negative...

who is going to decide which color code (hex) fits Humbrol number so and so. This will (again) result in endless discussions. Eeerhhh 16.7 million colors remember... For OD you will have about 100 variations, and it will turn out: "FF12" is more appropriate then "FF13", because "FF11" is to light...

I still remember the immortal words of my airbrush teacher: "Painting is not an exact sience, but it's common sense". Meaning everybody knows the sea is not pink, but it isn't a fixed type of blue either.

Don't takes this wrong Drab, I like the idea behind it, and admire the initiative, but I fear this will turn out to be another heated "debat"...

If you decide to go ahead, I more than willing to help wherever I can, but don't tell me I didn't warn you if you stick your head in a hornets nest...

Kris

Yes Kris, it could be a hornet's nest.

But I have to admit that i am somewhere fascinated by colors. What we understand as color is in fact a very complicated result of lightsource, light reflection, surface.... If you have a digital camera then make a photo of a gold ring and then look with photoshop what complex color differences you get in the same object.

And yes, my raw idea to use the hexadecimal computer code of color might be overprecise. Maybe I should think of making groups of numbers, or giving a minimum - maximum hexnumber, or...

It could indeed prove to be very difficult.

However, I have now 6 airplanes on my workbench (I have not made any model in many years and now that i have started again i just can't get it out of my head).

Once upon a time a was relatively experienced but now i am questioning everything, having forgotten a lot of my habits and things that i used to take for granted.

Of the 6 airplanes, one comes with paint instructions simply saying "red", "green", "blue", another one gives federal standard numbers, another one humbrol numbers...

I have only seen one of these planes in real life and I have temporarily lost the ability to look at a green surface and think "this is humbrol 30" or "no, its more like 117".

Screening the net i find many questions on color, shade, which paint to use....

It just looks in the long run easier to me to have a central independant system of sufficient precision to define a color which can then be used as reference for paints, real AFV, airplanes, buildings, ... than to continue comparing paints.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am searching problems where there are none, but it could be worth investigating.