dionysusbacchus

My Feedback: (25)

Certainly no one in scale R/C would ever dream of looking down upon someone else's choice of paint schemes, right? No one would ever say "That looks too green to me" or "That gray is too dark", right?

[link=http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html]Click here to Guess that Color!![/link]

Have a look at this site and let's all serve up some humble pie!

Dion

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Sort of reminds me of the tests for color-blindness. As far as warbirds go, either WWI or WWII, there were miltary "standard" colors, identified by a Federal Standard number or a Munsell number. In reality, those colors could vary by a significant margin due to the lot mix. Also, in the combat thaeters, the milspec paint wasn't always available and the closest thing the maintenance people could find is what was used. On many WWI models, there is a wide variation in color due to the lack of color photos from that era to use as reference, or written documentation which could be interpreted very differently by any two people reading it. It's possible to infer from shades of gray in a black-and white photo what the colors probably were, but as is shown in your "trick photos" there's no guarantee to a great degree of certainty.

As a case in point, Im planning to cover and paint a DR-1 Triplane in the scheme used by Ernst Udet, the #2 German ace in WWI. The top wing, struts, rear half of the fuse and tailplane were done in a striped pattern, the rest of the plane in "standard" Fokker factory colors, which were a greenish-brown fuse and upper surface of wings, and sky-blue, or robin's-egg blue underside of wings and fuse. All in all, a very distinctive and colorful plane. Some references say the stripes were black and white; others say they were a rose-red and teal color. There's enough disparity in those descriptions that one of them is surely wrong, but which one?

I think both the Fokkers look good, and plan to use black and white for mine. There is a very nice 1/4 scale one that was at the GSWA meet at Joe Nall that used the rose and teal, and it looked dynamite.

You say TOE-MAY-TOE, and I say TAH-MAH-TOE.

abufletcher

I like the stories, true or false, about guys somehow managing to get a hold of a couple cans of the same exact paint used on the full-size aircraft. I guess you can't get much more authentic than that.

Does beg the interesting quetion though: By what standards do we evaluate a scale paint scheme? Notice that I use the word "evalutate" and not "judge" -- I'm not really in the least bit interested in the regulations used in scale contests.

One criterion in determining the authenticity of WWI color schemes as displayed in BW photos is internal consistency. This could be simply states as follows: Irregardless of film type, colors which were the same on the original should appear as the same tone of grey in the same photo given that both are in the same light. Using this criterion I believe I have found an error in the color scheme used in the illustration on the cover of the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter WS datafile. This argument might help solve the "its red vs. its blue" type argument but doesn't help much with the "which shade of yellow" type debate.

In the end, being far more interested in the appearance and atmosphere of the scale models I make, I'd be willing to "alter reality" a bit if by doing so I could actually heighten the impression of reality.

A well accepted example of this is Dave Platt's recommendation what modelers NEVER use pure black or pure whites -- even if those were indeed the colors used on the original.

abufletcher

BTW, a careful comparison of the color profiles in the the WS datafile specials on the aircraft of Jasta 5 reveals subtle discrepencies with the photographs presented in quite a number of cases. The color profiles are then best thought of as a "best guess" schematic of the paint job rather than as the ultimate reference. Among the sorts of discrepancies I'm talking about are crosses that are too small, bands the wrong angle or width, inaccurate spacing between markings, etc.

And on the subject of the 4 and 5 color (day and night) patterned fabric used on later German aircraft -- well don't even go there unless you have an obsessive-compusive personality. (BTW, I'm glad that SOMEONE out there DOES obsess about this stuff cause I sure don't want to have to.)

Wayne22

My Feedback: (2)

Actually, until color film was invented, all aircraft were gray-scale !!

I'd love to see someone try and argue that one past the scale judges........

dionysusbacchus

My Feedback: (25)

I know that there are #'s for paint colors and things, but the point I was making and the point of the examples is that your eye does not always tell the truth about color. Lot's of colors on a plane, a WWI aircraft is a good example, may have been remembered as different colors by eye witnesses. Do you think this is possible?

Anyway, khodges I doubt that biplane had red letters over redish stripes. Seems to me that it makes more sense if the stripes were black. If in fact the letter codes were red!

Dion

The Ghost

All look grey to me(colour blind)

Cheers

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Exactly what I was saying about the written documentation to back up whether something was "rose-red, red, pink, etc, or teal, or blue-green" Different people will interpret differently, and the written record will conflict between two researchers.

I tend to agree that the red letters wouldn't stand out as well over reddish stripes. "LO" on the side of Udet's plane was his girlfriend's name, and all the documented material I have found says it was painted in red letters. Now, which color red do we want to argue ? We could go on and on with that. The other thing to consider with colors is newly painted vs. "been out in the field a while". Paints fade, yellow, become stained, etc after exposure to the sun and elements, so in 6 months, the same plane really isn't the same color it started out as, when considering a specific shade. Probably why Platt says not to use pure white or black.

As far as different sized and precise locations of markings go, damn few markings on WWI planes were stenciled and precisely located. There wasn't time in production, and little reason because everyone knew the plane wasn't going to last long anyway. Markings were usually sketched on and painted with a brush. In fact, Fokkers were painted entirely with two and three inch wide brushes, hence the streaked appearance of the paint jobs. As modelers, I know we get lost in trying to make it look "good" as well as "real", but sometimes a little less precision in the detailing is actually the more accurate view. I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to masking off the wing and fuse to paint my "invasion stripes", but in reality they were just slapped on, albeit by fairly skilled hands. I plan to paint my Fokker completely with a brush, no masking or stencilling. If it looks like s**t when I'm done, I''l say it was a hurried job by the factory to get the plane to the front so it could get shot down

BobH

My Feedback: (2)

I, regretfully, am one of those who obsess over color. Not that it really matters but it's just one of my "fun' things. Consider this; even if you got the color dead right, same paint as full scale etc. EACH PERSON perceives color a little different. This Phenom. is well known in the color world. So you have two judges looking at the very same subject at the same time in the same light and each one will see the color a little different.
Scale Masters did it right by reducing the color points to 5 for the competitors. If you're not competing then if you, the builder is happy, that's all that counts.

bmustang

My Feedback: (4)

I have often been left shaking my head when a modeler agonizes over getting the exact shade of some color for his scale model. The "real" airplanes we model are not that exact. Sure, the paper pushers in the military issued specs and even created "standard color chips" as far back as the 30's but in real life a Sergeant yelled an order at 2 privates and they dumped couple of gallons of whatever blue and white they had on hand into a bucket and stirred it with a mop handle and proceded to paint the fuselage of a PT-19 "Army Blue". During the war it was even worse in the field. Things often had to be done in extreme haste. The black and white invasion stripes on some airplanes looked like they were applied with a broom. They had a war to win - getting the mission accomplished was the priority, not making pretty airplanes or even adhering meticulously to specs.

But there is much more to the subject of color. Paint from the same container can look very different just from being applied over different surfaces, let alone over different colors. And no camera or color film responds to every lighting situation the same way a human eye does. In fact, different human eyes can respond differently - individuals vary in their color perception.

There is yet more on the subject of color perception and physics. This may be hard to believe but the colors we see, the reds, the blues, the greens, etc., DO NOT EVEN EXIST AS OBJECTIVE REALITY. The perception of color is a SUBJECTIVE experience. Electromagnetic radiation in wavelengths in the visible band does exist as objective reality but the various hues we perceive are just the eye's way of presenting information to the brain about the wavelengths of the light it detects.

The reason there are 3 "primary" colors is only that the human eye has 3 types of cone cells in the retina, each with a peak sensitivity for a different wavelength. There is nothing special about those wavelengths from the point of view of physics; they just happen to be the ones our eyes are most sensitive to. When our eyes detect light with a fairly even mix of wavelengths all across the visible spectrum, we perceive it as "white". When we don't detect any wavelengths, we perceive "black". When we detect light that is primarily a mix of the wavelengths nearest the "red" and the "blue" wavelengths but little of the other visible wavelengths, we perceive "purple", and so on. The retina of a duck's eye has cone cells with 5 peak sensitivities; so for a duck, there are 5 primary colors! No human being has any concept of what the world looks like to a duck! Even if it could talk, it could not tell us about the colors it sees any more than a sighted person can describe color to a person born blind. We cannot experience what a duck experiences visually. It used to be said that dogs, cats, horses and other animals could not see in color. It was assumed they only see in black and white. I'm not sure exactly how that discussion ended up but last I heard, the thinking was that they may have some limited color perception but not the same as ours. They can envy us and we can envy the ducks!

When it comes to getting the colors right on a scale model, those of us who do not fly in scale competition shouldn't have that much to fuss over. Just learn what you can about the colors of your subject, pick colors that look reasonable to your eye, paint or "'Kote" your airplane, and go enjoy flying it and showing it off to your buddies. Trying to get a dead match to a color chip can be pretty tedious; probably the "real" airplane didn't always have a perfect match to the "official" color chip either. I bet if you examined 10 different BT-14's at Kelly Field in 1941 you would see differences in the "Army Blue" fuselages as well as the "Chrome Yellow" wings. One ship just got out of the paint shop and another has been out in the weather for a couple of years since it was last painted. Two others, painted within a week of each other a while back don't match - the paint used on both came from the same manufacturer with the same stock number but they were from different lots. So why kill yourself trying to get it "just right"? The porcelain color samples the Army had at the time have probably changed in 65 years, if you could even find one.

For competition, it probably would be an advantage to build a model of an airplane that currently exists instead of trying to determine exactly how SBD-3, BuNo 121038, appeared on March 4, 1942, say. I really like WWII airplanes, but if I were entering one in competition, I would probably do a model of a modern restoration. One I could visit and take pictures of, and even find out what paints the owner used.

There is still a problem when the scale judge holds the chip in his hand and compares it to the model 15 feet away. Color values change with distance - by rights, the chip should be held at the same distance, in the same light, at the same angle that the model is. It would also need to be big enough to see well at 15'.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, life's too short to get all in a tizzy about getting the EXACT shade. I find something that looks good to my eye, I use it and go enjoy my airplane.

dionysusbacchus

My Feedback: (25)

Thank you for taking the time to write that post bmustang! Very interesting, you definitely have some knowledge about this subject.

We are lucky in this hobby because of the variation, there are so many ways to get enjoyment from it. What you look at as agonizing another may look at it as enjoyment. Not all who attempt to build a scale model as scale as possible compete, that has to be one of the things most people find very hard to understand, not sure why though. It's about enjoyment, although I am a very accomplished pilot I get most of my enjoyment out of "agonizing" over scale issues, and at this time I do not compete. The thing that everyone has to realize is that you don't have to understand why a person does what he does in this hobby to have fun. Personally I'm sick of ARF "build" threads, but I just don't read them! I understand that they have fun doing the same thing over and over again, something someone else has already done over and over again, and I say great!

Anyway, thanks again for the interesting read and your insights!

Dion

warbirdcolors

My Feedback: (5)

I will agree with bmustang to a point. If it looks good to you...go with it. But there is also a point where a color can be just wrong...i.e. an olive drab that's too green....whatever. For sure, 60-some years later we don't really know what color RLM 81 is/was, regardless of what the specs did or didn't say. With WarbirdColors i've matched the colors to what has evolved into a "standard" over time, using various documentation sources, to come to what i feel are accurate colors for the various countries. Yes, they varied from unit to unit, from theater to theater, from one airplane to the next...but you've gotta start somewhere and have something to use as a base reference. On the other hand.....If a lime green B17 works for you.....you can call it olive drab if you like, go for it...it's your warbird, and you can do whatever suits YOU

bmustang

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks for your replies, Dion and Warbirdcolors. My long post above is an edited version of an even longer piece I sent to the Smallnet list. Joe Wagner only used part of it so this thread provided an opportunity to get some more of it off my chest! So thanks also for starting this thread, Dion.

Warbirdcolors has some reservations about what I said so I will mention that part of what I did not include was a complaint about some really vile transgressions and I used an example of an ARF PT19 that used pale yellow and dark blue, both HORRIBLY wrong. No excuse for being THAT far off! So we really agree on that.

Also, Warbirdcolors has gone to great lengths to do the best possible job of providing as accurate colors as can be produced. He deserves great credit for this and I certainly did not mean to imply that that effort was wasted. Far from it; we scale modelers are very lucky to have people who are willing to take on a job like that in order to provide us with really excellent products to answer our needs. I'm well aware that nobody makes a million in the hobby business and the providers do this more for love of the hobby than for profit and they deserve our thanks and our support.

The point I was trying to get to was about the type of modeler who stops having fun because he just can't get something absolutely perfect and be able to prove it. He is losing sight of the whole point of this activity which is to have fun and he is experiencing PAIN, not pleasure, hence my use of the word "agonize". If you are getting satisfaction out of your efforts to get the color just right, then you are not "agonizing" over it, you are simply enjoying working on it! Nothing wrong with that! So I wasn't talking about the modelers who are having fun, I was talking about the ones who aren't.

There are many limitations to finding and reproducing exact colors and most people are not even aware of many of the reasons why. Such as the fact that colors only exist in the eye/brain system and not in the external world! That blew me away when I first came across it but it does make sense. Also, preserving a record of an exact shade of color is awfully difficult - paints fade and age, color dyes (as in photographic films) change over time - can we even be sure that our color chips are really the same after 30, 40 or 60 years?

Dave Platt has said that paint "formulas" (2 parts of this, 3 parts of that, etc.) really don't work. Years ago I had a gallon or two left over after painting our house. Some years later, I wanted to repaint the back that had faded from the sun. (The front never got direct sun and still looked pretty good from the street, lucky for me.) I bought one more gallon and had the paint store shake up my older unopened cans. Out of the faded side, the unfaded side, the old cans and the new can - not one of the 4 matched any of the other 3. And they were all supposedly the same brand, same color and the same stock nbr. Probably most of us have had similar experiences. Now we have some new technology, such as the store mixing our exact color by computer matching to a sample. That's wonderful, but if it's for an airplane that existed decades ago, we can't be 100% sure that our sample is really right.

I better stop before I get to the article in a photography magazine where they loaded 8 different color films in 8 identical cameras and mounted them on a bar on a single tripod and took 8 versions of each of a number of different types of pictures in various lighting situations.

nine o nine

My Feedback: (1)

As regards computer color matching at the paint store. Don't you believe it. I own an independent paint store and spend much of my time matching samples of this and that which customers have brought in. The computer in some cases gives a "good enough" match but for most jobs, the paints need to be worked on using the human eye,one each.
In store lighting, in home lighting, fabric versus on wood, metal, vinyl siding, or plaster....etc. These different substrates all come into play when color matching. The same can be said for painting models. It's all about perception and going with your best resources. Distance, UV and haze effect change everything! Overspray with a purple hued clearcoat to SORT of achieve this phenomenon. There's no right or wrong in mny cases and I've always said that color judges should be women as most men have varying degrees of color acuity.
The previous poster said that his cans of housepaint neither match his house nor one another and I believe it. I always advise my customers to "box" enough paint to do a complete wall corner to corner. Never start a wall that you can't finish with a continuous batch of paint. Four sided house??? Four batches of paint is OK since the light is completely different falling on each side and you can't see all four sides at one time anyway . Mitch

mfranke

My Feedback: (1)

Guys,
this is a great discussion about color. A few other points. Dave Platt in his video series also says. " Never use a color three view in your scale documentation." It's far better use a paint chip from some recognized source. The reason is the printing alone can distort the colors and alter a judge's perception of what color your plane really should be. The Brits are pretty fanatical about color as well. There is an excellent publication on the Battle of Britain, aircraft colors. They're using many archaeological pieces of aircraft dug up to demonstrate the various colors of "sky blue." It's interesting because in the plastic modeling community, there's a constant debate about does color have scale? On smaller models colors appear darker than they do a larger ones. I'm sure the same is true for radio control. As under certain lighting circumstances, the farther way your are away from the model, the lighter it will appear.
I hope many the scale judges are reading this thread.

BobH

My Feedback: (2)

It always seemed logical to me that if you provide color photographs that your plane should be viewed at the same distance (size ways) as it appears in your photo. Then if the colors match you should be golden. Of course the ONLY problem with that is the lighting! Sunny, partly cloudy, overcast, time of year, etc. whew!! Not to mention that some planes are judged indoors. And pray tell what does it matter if the printing distorts the color? I would bet that the "recognized source" is different from another "recognized source".
So what we are left with is SOME COLOR that SOMEONE says is THE COLOR and we duplicate that as best we can. You pick your source and you pick your colors. I think thats as good as we can do.

dragoonpvw

My Feedback: (7)

I always try to stay out of this hole but I watched for a while to see what reactions were to the color illusions Luke posted. Instead of the correct conclusion, that whatever we think we see the colour is the same. Though the various pictures looked different when we are given a proof (the mask) then we realise that our perceptions had been clouded. The most important fact to us modelers then is that no matter how we see a plane, whether it is in dark or light or in a colour photograph, the colour of the plane never changes. As we now realise that we cant derive our data from most of these sources we ( and so did the authorities who started the British standards numbers) we use a set standard that is not open to interpretation.
Bmustangs long posts about what we see and the physiologigal reasons for it have no bearing at all on the actual colour of an object. The truth is that if you paint a ball with red paint and film it , then show that film on ten tvs, each red will look different. Same with colour still cameras, that is where my background is, that and traditional art. If you want to copy that ball, when you look at each tv seperately the colours will look very similar but you can try to match one and it will be nothing like the original, but if I say here, you can use the same paint I used and here it is, then you have a match, whether it looks like the tv image or not, it matches the original. That is what the standard colours are for. If you want to match the original find the fs or bs number and that is your starting point, the rest is discretionary, lightening for size etc. Never use colour photos or prints unless it is a reference piece or that is all you have, colour photos are extremely poor carriers of exact colour information. Especially the wartime types which had reduced or perverted gamuts.
All I would say is use the fs color charts and your judge cant argue with you.
There are a few other fallacies out there too. As Bmustang says I don't know if he has ever been in the service but this sloppiness was not common in any armed forces unless very tightly stretched. The fact is that most planes were painted at the factory and never got another coat of paint, the lots of paint were so large that batches were very similar as they are today in the service. Planes that did get repaints were done at FMU's and used the same paint. The USAAC used the surplus camo paint from the RAF there was so much made, was there slight variations? I would expect some but not as radical as is often made out. The idea that ground crews were sloppy with their planes is laughable though, the planes own ground crew took great pride in their pilots mount and often went far beyond what was required to do a good job. Did crews needing to do something in the field have to improvise sometimes, yes and they mixed colours up in the field, but unless you have it documented then stay with a standard as that will be more likely to be right. The British planes paint jobs were strictly regulated and the crews stuck with it more often than not as it was taught that the exact colour, paint type (extremely important) and camouflage pattern was essential to the protection of the plane and pilot. The same with the invasion stripes, it has become very popular to expound on how they were thrown on with yardbrooms giving an image of a Laurel and Hardy sketch with whitewash everywhere. It is true that the units used on the first day only had 21 hours to get them on but many were done well. The units that had more time would have done better. Even some of the well done ones were generally a little unsteady round insignia but if you research you will see as many plane with well done stripes. The regulations for those too were stringently set out. but if you are telling me that every groundcrew who lovingly cleaned and polished a plane, painted intricate nose art and kill markings plus all the rest would ruin it all by just tossing junk all over it then I don,t buy it and the pictures dont bear it out. The quick wear that the stripes showed due to the nature of application also make them look poor in pictures too. Some however i must admit like they were applied by drunken monkeys but not all>
The first post was interesting but nothing new, most people realise that colours look different in shadows and that our eyes compensate for it. It was fun to see it in action, I think it was really a strong advocation of colour charts and federal standards.
The idea that there is no such thing as colour outside our heads is very funny to me. Colour is just a description of an objects ability to absorb or reflect a part of the spectrum of light. Light is real and so are its constituent parts, the spectrum, an objects ability to absorb or reflect a part of the spectrum is real so why would colour not be real. It is just a physical property of an object like mass, density etc, just stating what seems obvious.
Good luck
Paul

pete913

People who obsess over the " correct" colors kill me. I don't really see what all the hand wringing is about when most "authorities" can't even figure out that khaki is brown, not green.

HalH

My Feedback: (12)

I have always been told that one should not use florescent lighting when matching colors. Use only incandescent bulbs or natural light. Seems that bright sunlight versus cloudy weather makes some difference.

Another factor is the angle at which something is viewed. The glacial ice depending on direction it is viewed is white or light blue when viewed from a distance. A small piece of glacial ice held close is perfectly clear .

dragoonpvw

My Feedback: (7)

Funny that if I applied the same standards to other more common images I would be laughed out of the show. For instance if I made a memorial car to Dale Earnhart in these colours his fans would think string me up. Thats how I feel when I see Johnny Johnsons plane looking like this. A nice built plane but "shuddderrr!!!!!" the colour. Where do you draw the line.
http://www.rcwarbirds.com/victorsspitpage.htm
Khaki, thats easy, just mix coffee and dirt and dip a white cloth in it and that is the colour, this is what the British soldiers did when they invented khaki by doing this to their then white uniforms to blend in the jungle. It is from the Persian word for dirt.
Good Luck
Paul

papermache

My Feedback: (35)

When it comes to military aircraft, the standardized colors only serve to give us what the color was SUPPOSED to be. As bmustang pointed out, what actually WAS was much more the result of the privates with the bucket and the mop handle. THOSE are the colors that we can never document, but that were the actual colors.

The variables that can occur with aircraft coloring are many. In both WWI and WWII manufacturers were plagued by shortages of the "correct" materials so that often colors didn't match the specs right from the factory. In the field it was often catch-as-catch-can with any type of paint. Add to that dirt, rust, corrosion, castor oil staining, sun fading, etc. and you'll see what I mean.

Do your best research and get as close as you can to the color you think is best. Nobody can actually PROVE you wrong (and this goes especially for WWI!).

papermache

BobH

My Feedback: (2)

It's common knowledge that at least during WWII many aircraft builders differed in the paint colors that they used on their planes as they left the factory. Although the paint properties were known the suppliers of the ingredients differed. So you would have OD of a little different shade and hue comming out of different factories. I'm sure the same situation existed during WWI as well. The translation of a written requirement and the application of that requirement can and does vary widely depending on lots of variables.
Going back to the original postulate I believe the intent was that regardless of the correct color our Preception of that color can and does change. When it comes to Judging, perception is everything, almost.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

This may be true, however, in competition it is your duty to prove you are right! Which actually brings up another interesting point. An airplane that is to be entered in competition may be finished differently than one that will not be competed with and the latter could very well be the more accurate!

PS- Take a look at the sample documentation package on the Scale Masters web site some time. The sample given is for a Mitsubishi Zero, more specifically, the Zero owned and operated by the Planes of Fame in California. The paint chips used for the color documentation are of the standard military colors used by the Japanese during the second world war. What are the chances that the Planes of Fame actually had some original Japanese military paint stocks laying around?!! Shouldn't the builder have had to prove his model was painted to match the restored Zero which may, or may not, have been painted in accurate colors? Yet this is the "example" of supposedly suitable documentation.

papermache

My Feedback: (35)

Chad,
Then when it comes to competition, use the color chips. Then, like I said, you have an airplane with the colors it was SUPPOSED to have, whether or not it, in fact, did. I'm not saying the chips are wrong. What I'm saying is that paint mixing remains to this day an inexact science. If I go to 5 different paint stores and have each of them mix me the same color, I'm most likely going to have 5 different shades of that color. They'll all be close, but it remains how close you care to get. You CAN drive yourself nuts doing stuff like that.

papermache

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

I was not disagreeing with you papermache, hope I didn't come off that way. I was trying to make the point that the current rules may force a modeler to use published information that he knows is wrong simply to have the necessary paper trail to compete. This, to my way of thinking, is going backwards.