<> 1/48 Arado Ar196A - WW1 / WW2 over Water.

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Kirby. I had not come across those mixes in my searches and will give those a look.

 

[Crimea_River]

Just a quick update. The only work done on this model since last posting was to start masking the undersides and struts to begin receiving the top colours. I tried the mixes quoted by Kirby and post below the results of all my trials against the colour chips in Merrick's Luftwaffe Colours Opus. The latest mixes are shown on the left side of the trial panel and are far too light in my opinion. To my eye, the XF69/XF/11 combination is still the closest to the 72/73 colour chips and I will go with those and just maybe lighten them slightly.

A bonus to all these trials is that I would be very happy using straight XF27 and XF61 for RLM 70 and 71 respectively on future builds

 

[Wayne Little]

Mixing colours is actually a good challenge, but can be frustrating at times....but once you nail it...it's all smiles.

I should see what I actually did on my BV222 asI did get a pretty close match as I recall...

 

[turbo]

Very interesting and useful results Andy. Remember scale effect, for a 1/48 model I'd usually be lightening the colour around 10% against a colour chip.

 

[Wayne Little]

Think I found my mixes for the Bv222, if it helps.....can't find the jars....

RLM72 - XF27:3 + XF8:2 + XF1:1
RLM73 - XF13:5 + XF8:2

 

[Crimea_River]

Kirby, yep, noted.

Wayne, thanks. will give those a try.

 

[Crimea_River]

Hmm. Mixed and sampled Wayne's suggestions. The 72 looks too blue to me but it also doesn't look like the colour I see in his BV222 thread. I might have got the proportions wrong and will give it another go.

 

[parsifal]

Am I correct to think that RLM colours are tricky to get right? Or is just that you guys know your subject far too well?

 

[Crimea_River]

72 and 73 aren't as common as the other standard LW colours. Tricky only in that with Tamiya paints you need to mix your own colours based on recipes shared in the modeling community. Some paint suppliers make premixed paints but they are often not consistent when comparing with colour chits and with other manufacturers.

 

[Wayne Little]

Here are those mix comparrisons I did on some white card when I was first mixing the colours...

i think it was first under a light then did autocorrect originally then out in the afternoon sun today..to show the variable lighting

 

[Wurger]

 

[parsifal]

look very accurate....

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks great there Wayne. Maybe I blew the mix for the 72. I did it by counting drops but maybe that's not accurate for small amounts. I'll give it another go tomorrow.

 

[Wayne Little]

I use a special highly secret method passed down to modellers for generations......same as you!

end of a paint brush counting drops and mixing probably 5 to 10 times the ratio to get a reasonable average.

 

[Crimea_River]

Yeah, being the cheap bastard that I am, I didn't want to waste paint on a trial so I just counted the 5 drops, added 2, etc. I suspect drop size depends on paint viscosity which could vary between colours. I normally use a 1/8 teaspoon to measure my mixes but that gives me a lot of paint.

 

[Crimea_River]

Well, I mixed full batches based on Wayne's formulas and got the same results. The 72 turns out far too blue for my liking but I like the 73 mix. The pics below show Wayne's mixes (W72 and W73) and straight XF-69 for 72 and straight XF-11 for 73. The pics are taken in sunlight (first one) and a combination of tungsten and fluorescent. My conclusion is that I will go with Wayne's 73 and XF-69 for 72. Both will be lightened a touch with white.

 

[Crimea_River]

With the Skyhawk done, I've taken this one off the back burner again. I was working on the model as opportunities arose during my GB 35 build and, as you can see, I've been doing some extensive masking on the undersides and have preshaded mostly aroud the control surface boundaries when I had some black paint left over in the cup from other sessions.

I then decided to use Wayne's suggested mix for RLM 73 and squirted that on in the rough splinter pattern. Doing this has confirmed my suspicions that it would be very difficult to get my airbrush into the inner faces of the pontoons. In fact, it's f!cking impossible so I can see doing some brush painting here when I get to applying the 72. The other thing that's now bugging me is that the 73 looks too dark and I think that I may need to redo the application with the same mix cut with a bit more white. What do you think?

 

[Airframes]

Looking good.

 

[Wurger]

Agreed.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys but I have concluded that the green representing the 73 is too dark so I made some adjustments to the mix. At first I added white and overdid it. I then added more XF-13 which did not get me back to the right point so then I dumped in some XF-11. At his point I have no idea what the mix ratio is any more so don't ask me to replicate it! Nonetheless, I'm happier now with the result. Here's a comparison where the forward section of the wing has been redone with the lighter colour.

I then mixed up the 72 using 2 parts XF-69 to 1 part XF-2 and free-handed the splinter pattern. As you can see, I didn't fully finish the job and will do that tomorrow.

Thanks for looking in guys.