Vallejo colour accuracy....opinions?

[Ian M]

Wonder why it is always green that gives the arguments.....

Green is one of the top scorers in colour blindness tests. A large portion of which classifiers as green/brown colour blind. That is when greens and browns get to a certain tone, they can not see the difference. A big problem when trying to find a "proper" olive green.... Or olive brown.....
Apparently, some are so badly affected they have real problems with the classic RAF dark green and dark earth camouflage seeing it as two tones of the same colour!!!!

To get back to the question, Xtracryix have most of things down to a good match. Some of their armour colours are way off though.
If you dont have issue with enamel paints. Sovereign hobbies colour coat paints are as good as they get. All matched to original manufacturers colour chips.
I used to get far to hung up on colours. these days its. "close enough".

 

[BarryW]

Give ten modellers the same kit and you will end up with ten different colour variations of the said

What is more all the ten variations could be right!

 

[Jakko]

Don't get too hung up on colours as it will drive you mad.
Plus I think the vast majority of modellers couldn't give a toss about complete accuracy.
Have fun and if it looks right to you then it is right.

On the other hand, I think it helps to try and find out what the real colour actually is or was, so you can at least aim for being in the right area. American olive drab, for example, was not green but had a distinctly brown hue (according to an article I read in Military Modelling ages ago, if you ask American tankers from the Second World War what colour their vehicles were, they’ll often say “brown”). A lot of people seem to confuse olive drab with olive green, though, and paint their American AFVs and aircraft in a green shade.

Or, the manufacturer gets the colour badly wrong or labels it in a way that could be misleading, and people use it because they don’t know any better. For example, Humbrol No. 66 olive drab is nothing like American military olive drab, and also doesn’t look like a faded or weathered version of it, but because it is called “olive drab”, many modellers will simply take that and go with it based on the name on the tin alone.

Sure, it’s not wrong wrong to paint your model that way, but IMHO if you aim (or claim) to get things more or less right, some colours are clearly more wrong than others.

 

[Archetype]

I don’t think olive drab appears on the FAA palette, so I should be safe!

Except maybe when I get round to that chinook....

 

[BarryW]

I don’t think olive drab appears on the FAA palette, so I should be safe!

Except maybe when I get round to that chinook....

Olive Drab weathered in interesting and various ways depending on what conditions it was exposed to. In addition there were two official shades in WW2, one an early war shade and the other later, to add to the fun. You can really have a lot of fun with that colour with plenty of different ‘looks’ that could be incorporated into a single model.

 

[Archetype]

Good to know! Thanks!

 

[stillp]

OD was also supplied by several different paint manufacturers, which, apart from having some small differences when new, weathered differently.
Pete

 

[Jakko]

there were two official shades in WW2, one an early war shade and the other later, to add to the fun.

That’s USAAF olive drab. US Army olive drab for ground forces was always the same as the dark early-war USAAF colour (actually, the other way around). A common misconception is that the aeroplane colour change also applied to ground vehicles.

 

[Archetype]

.... all that, and absolutely no-one mentiond Dunkelgelb or Olive Drab! What a wonderful site this is .

 

[Tim Marlow]

For colour accuracy, pick the bones out of this one.....illustrates the close enough point quite nicely....


I’m sure they started out pretty close in most cases...

 

[Si Benson]

I totally agree with the whole paint thing.
Agree 100% with Ron’s sentiments about paint and how nice it is too see so many of us in agreement on the subject.

Tim....that is an excellent picture to prove the point

 

[yak face]

For colour accuracy, pick the bones out of this one.....illustrates the close enough point quite nicely....

View attachment 336274
I’m sure they started out pretty close in most cases...

Right , thats the shopping done , now where did I park the tank ? Oh bugger!

 

[JR]

As written above by members, there are so many variables re. paint colours and shades that just what is right or wrong is impossible to state. Get it something like, yes. But take into account the original paint batch, the weather, how thick/thin the paint was applied, the list is endless.....

More importantly to me anyway, and what I have observed with this thread is the constructive and civilized way the discussion has been conducted. Elsewhere such a subject would have become volatile and personal - Not here!

So top marks gents......

Ron

I haven't posted yet .!

 

[Jakko]

For colour accuracy, pick the bones out of this one.....illustrates the close enough point quite nicely....

View attachment 336274
I’m sure they started out pretty close in most cases...

I saw a similar photo of British Army vehicles sometime ago, and tried to find it for posting in this thread, but couldn’t locate it anymore. This one illustrates the point very well too.