Colors for RAF and LW Skins

[Bullethead]

I periodically check in on Target For Tonight to see how that project's coming along.  Tonight I noticed that they've posted up color chips and RGB values for their RAF and LW airplane skins.  If these colors are any good, they'd of course be useful to AH skin-makers as well.  I'm not qualified to judge, but they look good to me.

So here's the link:  Paint Chips.  Please check it out and let me know if these chips are accurate.  I've already noticed 1 problem myself, namely that RAF Night Black and RLM 22 Schwarz show different color chips but the same RGB values.  But otherwise, how is it?

[Dux]

You can get many variations of the same color, depending on which "color space" you're using. Real paint is mixed differently than RGB (Pigment vs Light)... CMYK colors would be a closer match to real paint, but you can only view them on RGB monitors... hence the discrepancy. RGB and CMYK cannot reproduce either one's full range.

There is also the matter of RLM colors... (I'm paraphrasing from memory here, from Luftwaffe Color Profiles) Apparently no official records exist as to what the actual ingredients for RLM colors were. Everything we have today is based on photographic interpretation (Black and white photos, mostly). Much of it was actually mixed in the field also... so much for consistency.

So what you do is this... start with the color chips (cuz you gotta start somewhere) but if it does not look right to you, alter it. You probably have a pretty accurate feel for what looks right, so trust your instincts.

Bottom line... nobody can prove that you're wrong.

ps. I have some other similar links if you're interested... I'll post them here.

[Dux]

Another thing to consider is a trick that plastic modelers use. They actually "scale" their color down; meaning they add between 10% and 25% white to the color, to make it look bigger than it really is.

It's hard to explain, but it's similar to the way color chips at the paint store never look the same as a wall painted in the same color... A large area  of color will always look lighter than a small area of the exact same color. The same is true in the virtual world.

Another thing to consider... aircraft spend alot of time in a high-ultraviolet environment. The colors fade rather quickly... some colors fade faster than others, notably reds and blues.

[Dux]

Some links...

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/digitalcolourchartswm_1.htm

http://www.cty-net.ne.jp/~connellj/america.htm

http://www.cty-net.ne.jp/~connellj/german-w.htm

http://www.concentric.net/~Rojo1/camocolors.html

[gatso]

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They're the ones I use too. The concentric site primarily because of the nice .gif colour patches I can just pick up and drop into PSP.

At the end of the day the results look good and are consistent so I'm happy with them.

Gatso

[Dux]

Lol, one last thing...

If you are concerned about color matching, and you trust your source material that lists the RGB or CMYK values, then do not use the color samples on the webpage in a drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste fashion. Actually create the color using the palette in your program by typing in the RGB values listed.

Why?

Because webpages are created using GIFs, and GIFs are limited to an 8-bit web-friendly palette. So whatever color that chip started as, when it was converted to a GIF it was changed to its nearest-match within the websafe range. It could be severely different looking from what it was intended to be... or not. Only way to be sure you're starting from an accurate point is to mix the color yourself.

I only bring this up if you are really concerned about matching. Otherwise, if it looks right to you, go with it.

[Bullethead]

Thanks for all the advice, especially Dux .  You pretty much reinforced my own feelings on this subject, as to nobody knowing exactly what an RLM color was, and also to mix your own paints in your program using the RGB values.  

I'm planning on finding some RGBs I like and then making a file of my own labeled chips that I can eyedropper safely.  Unless somebody's already got one of those

As to paints being mixed in the field, I'll give my own experience from ground combat in the First Gulf War (2nd, if you count Iran-Iraq)...

Our vehicles arrived in-country wearing the standard NATO dark green/brown/black camo, with black stenciling of serial and unit/vehicle numbers.  This of course stood out like a neon sign on the very light tan (nearly white) of the local sand.  So in the night between unloading the ships and deploying to the front, we stole some sand camo paint and sprayers from the Army, and repainted our vehicles.  The results were effective but definitely not regulation .  This was all done in the dark by inexperienced crews who hadn't slept in several days and were suffering from jetlag besides.

We hadn't stolen enough paint so we thinned it, moreso as we went along and realized we had to stretch it further.  Thus, on all vehicles, you could see the outlines of the underlying NATO camo showing through the sand, because the borders of the color patches overlapped and were darker.  On the last few vehicles we did, some of the sand overspray had definite green and black tinges where it covered those patchs of underlying paint, due to excessive thinning.  And on the very last few vehicles, we didn't bother covering the NATO brown patches so they ended up with greenish and blackish sand over 2/3 of their surface and standard NATO brown elsewhere, with irregular, oversprayed edges.

We didn't have stencils or black paint so we covered the existing ones with duct tape while we sprayed.  Thus, we still had the original black stencils on irregular rectangles of NATO camo, surrounded by the sand paint.

On some vehicles, we put duct tape over the lights and reflectors, then sprayed over that.  That was so we wouldn't have to clean the paint off the lenses when we got back home.  During operations, some of this tape came off and was replaced by whatever was handy--mostly caked mud.  But we ran out of duct tape partway through so on some vehicles we just painted over the lenses directly.  Usually these were the ones with the thinnest sand paint.

We didn't bother masking anything else.  Thus, we got sand paint overspray on the tire sidewalls and windshield glass along the frames.  This stuck amazingly well and was still in evidence, even on the sidewalls, months later when the war ended.  But on some vehicles, we didn't paint the wheel hubs due to lack of paint so they were still in NATO colors.

Then we went out to the front and the war started.  The trucks got filthy with caked mud because it rained about 2 out of every 3 days for months.  We soon had to steal some black paint to put chevrons on all sides of the vehicles as markings to prevent friendly ground fire.  This went on over the mud.  On some vehicles, the chevrons were just single light passes with spray cans, hardly noticeable at all, while other guys took the time to make wide, dark chevrons.  But in no case did we have stencils for this--it was all done by hand with spray cans--so the chevrons were all lopsided and irregular to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the care taken by the individual painter.  And while they were holding the spray cans, most guys added some "nose art" and grafitti to their vehicles, all in black paint.  A lot of drivers put their names on their door, and aces of spades and clubs were common motifs.  But slogans and gang grafitti were common as well.  In addition to the chevrons, we also put patches of day-glo orange fabric on top keep friendly planes from strafing us.

Then the oil wells blew up and all the hydrocarbon crap came down in the rain.  This put a layer of black scum all over everything.  It was pretty much solid on top, and ran down the sides in streaks.  And more mud caked on all the time, which was never washed off for the duration of the war.  Plus, we didn't have a drop of diesel fuel so were burning Jet-A.  This produced thick black gunk, continually refreshed, all over everything within several feet downwind of the exhaust pipes.

It was always funny when we teamed up with the Army for some joint op.  All their vehicles had been painted for the desert at a factory or well-equipped depot.  The sand color was uniform with no trace of NATO camo underneath, and no overspray on tires and such.  All their stencils were freshly done in black on top of this, and their chevrons were also stenciled and uniform.  We looked like barbarians in comparison

[Dux]

Lol, that's a great story!

So what force were you with? Marines? IFOR?

and yeah... a pre-made swatch of colors is one of those things I've been meaning to make for a long time now... I will at some point.

[ramzey]

its a longest war between modellers;) how look RLM or any other paint scale;)

In games all depends from art chsed by developer
AH skins are much lighter then real one, all is doing to loks better

On PC'screen you cannot show "correct" colors, every monitor show diferent and only hi-end expencive systems match quality.
Go to shoop and connect several monitors and lauch any picture
every looks diferent, even from same company.

Paints was produced in diferent times and factories, so they are fit each other not much.
For example in 2 US factories cockpit green looks diferent on corsairs from goodyear and vought;) Same references

But not for skins painting.
Somome who work in pre-press system know that pain;)
Here you should use measure fit to overall game look. "on eye"
just for better looks and not far from oryginal.

Just look on corsairs on okinawa terran. F4u1d is match to RL color,/but brighter a bit/  F4u-1C, F4u-4 is oryginal HTC.

Game as AH, IL2/FB/CFS use 256 colors scale to increse speed of load. SO not expect too much. All is optimized for gamelay

at end link, read whole article

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/colorcharts.asp

ramzey

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Bullethead
So here's the link:  Paint Chips.  Please check it out and let me know if these chips are accurate.  I've already noticed 1 problem myself, namely that RAF Night Black and RLM 22 Schwarz show different color chips but the same RGB values.  But otherwise, how is it?

The reason the 'color chips' look different is that the 'chip' for RAF Night Black is [32 36 39], while the 'chip' for RLM 22 Schwarz is [66 66 67] as the RGB values state.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by ramzey
its a longest war between modellers;) how look RLM or any other paint scale;)

Paints was produced in diferent times and factories, so they are fit each other not much.
For example in 2 US factories cockpit green looks diferent on corsairs from goodyear and vought;) Same references

And aircraft modellers have it easy, since aircraft are painted under good conditions with some care taken as to the quality of the paint job. Ground vehicles are a whole 'nother story.

Take WWII German AFV camouflage. In February 1943, a general order was issued to change the base coat from Dunkelgrau to Dunkelgelb nach Muster (later numbered RAL 7028) - a tan color.  Field units were issued tins of Rotbraun RAL 8017 (red brown) and Olivgrün RAL 6003 (dark olive green) paste concentrate to create camouflage patterns suitable for local conditions.

Now, the paste concentrates were supposed to be diluted with gasoline and sprayed onto the vehicles. However, because of gasoline shortages, the vagaries of how much the pastes were diluted, and the availability of the spray equipment (and the time to use them, you see camouflage that was applied with everything from the prescribed spray guns to brooms, and colors that ranged from (red brown) chocolate brown to brick red and (olive green) almost black to pea green. Add the practice of slapping a thin slurry of mud to a vehicle that would otherwise stand out (actually, a good practice, since the dried mud would match bare ground, although it wears off quickly) and the winter white overpaint (and its substitutes, lime whitewash and even chalk), and you get huge variations in color between two vehicles that were putatively painted to the same camouflage specifications, even before the issue of wear and fading is taken into consideration.

[Bullethead]

Dux said:

So what force were you with?

I was in the Counterbattery Radar Platoon of the 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division .

and yeah... a pre-made swatch of colors is one of those things I've been meaning to make for a long time now... I will at some point. [/B]

I made some up tonight for the US, UK, and LW from the RGBs on the sites you posted above.  They seem to work pretty well.  As you can tell, I'm getting ready to make AH2 skins

[Bullethead]

Originally posted by Shiva
The reason the 'color chips' look different is that the 'chip' for RAF Night Black is [32 36 39], while the 'chip' for RLM 22 Schwarz is [66 66 67] as the RGB values state.

Thanks.

[Waffle]

FYI


"Luftwaffe Colours" by Michael Ullamann has a very detailed history of the German painting schemes / techniques along with copies of documents from Command describing colours/camo and where to paint them for all planes. Also has included paint chips.


Waffle