Is it me? or does this look to dark for a T34?
It's had a coat of Humbrol 155 OD, then a coat of Vallejo air 017 Russian green,an overspray of 017 ,with a bit of white,then a coat of KLEAR (Future) Once the washes are done it will get a coat of Klear /Tamiya flat base




It's the first time I've used Klear ,does it allways darken the base colour?
Can anyone suggest a site with some colour pics of WWII T-34's
Any help will be most welcome
Cheers chums
Andy

Torch you can give it a faded look using filters or pigments. That may help. The Future coat may make it seem a little dark, I am not sure about that though.

HTH,
Salvo

Colour looks OK to me. Here are a couple of pics of the T 34 at the Imperial war museum, its probably been repainted since the war though.


Andy (++)

There was quite a range of greens used on T34s. The T34-85 was pretty dark, especially the ones used in Berlin. I don't see anything wrong with the colour.

Dave

Andy

I think it is the Klear/Future coat that made it darker That's why I don't use that stuff anymore With Soviet paint in W.W.2 I don't think there was any certain shade of green they used Once you get the flat coat on it should lighten up

Thanks for the help guys ,I have some Mig pig(allied green fading P036) ,at the risk of looking a thicko
is there a difference between a pigment and a filter??
Cheers
Andy

Hi Andy,
yes the clearcoat will darken the base coat, I don't use the stuff, only on the areas where a decal would go. I too thought the colour on my KV-1 and T34 would be too dark, I'm doing the Tamiya kits, and they call for XF-61, and I thought that was way too dark, I managed to score a couple of bottles of XF-73, and once applied and a wash, the colour is not too bad, not too dark at all, but then again, as people have said, different shades of green were used all the time.

Almost any glossy coat will make the color darker, and almost any flat/matt clear coat will make the color lighter. Actually, it's true for the same shade of paint in glossy versus flat, or even for solid objects that are polished or left rough.

This is because of what makes surfaces glossy or matt. Glossy surfaces are smoother, at the microscopic level. This means they reflect light as glare, bouncing it relatively cleanly. Matt surfaces, OTOH, being rougher bounce the light less coherently, and instead scatter the rays.

It's like the difference between throwing tennis balls at a flat surface (the bounce will always be predictable, and if the balls come from the same direction, the bounces will all be the same) versus a pile of rocks (the balls bounce unpredictably, and the same throw will bounce in any number of directions, depending on exactly which piece of rock it hits). Light is the tennis balls, and matt surfaces are the pile of rocks.

So, when you Future/Kleer/glosscote/polish a model, you're getting all the light to bounce in the same dircetion. So, in that one direction, the model's much lighter, but we (correctly) interpret that as glare, not the color of the model itself. When you Dullcote/matt varnish/roughen the model, the light that used to be glare is scattered. Our eyes and brain percieve this as being a lighter shade, even though it's just a very diffused glare!

Bottom line: the model will get lighter again when you coat it with a clear matt finish. Sorry for the long post!

Thanks again guys
I've being testing flat coats on a few scrap kits....

Klear/Future,Tamiya flat base 3 to 1 mix

pooh!!
Xtracolor XDF matt varnish,thinners 2 to 1
ouch!!
Humbrol matt cote,thinners 2 to 1

Spot on

An older modeler (my mentor) actually met a Japanese soldier who was captured by the Russians in Mongolia, and spend a number of years as a POW. He worked in a tank unit as slave labor doing all the grunt work. When asked about colors he answered mostly shades of brown/green. The soldiers were told to pour the used oil from oil changes on the tank to prevent rust. Sounded messy.

I read a very good article (I am a poor painter) on painting a few years ago. The modeler painted in bright colors, then toned it down with shades of very thin flat OD. I tried it, and it works.

BTW, very nice looking T-34, Trumpeter?

Hi Andy I usually use Humbrol 102 when I paint Soviet WW2 armour if that's any help.

Hi Andy I usually use Humbrol 102 when I paint Soviet WW2 armour if that's any help.