Free French F-5 Photo Lightnings

CWD · #1 (**permalink**) 4th September 2005, 21:11

Yep, me again.

What would anybody recommend for the cyanish color on the Free French F-5 on this page (called Haze Blue there)? There's nothing on the French color chart that looks close to me. I tried PRU Blue from the British colorchart, but it doesn't look bright enough. The next closest looks like Dark Mediterranean Blue.

Hunhunter · #2 (**permalink**) 5th September 2005, 00:54

Hmm... tough call. The colour in the top photo is darker than the two pics lower down

I have no idea what shade the French used but the top one looks similar to the RAF PR Blue. The two big pics seem to have too much Green in them??

You could always just sample the colour off the photos which would make the skin the same colour as the model.

CWD · #3 (**permalink**) 5th September 2005, 02:45

I think it's just the lighting in the top photo versus the two lower ones. Yeah, I kinda figured I'd have to end up eyeballing it. The RAF color is definitely seem too dark to me, though.

1.JaVA_Platypus · #4 (**permalink**) 10th September 2005, 00:17

Might I add that modelers often mix their paint with white because of the scale-effect. The scale effect makes the paint look darker when the scale gets smaller. 1:48 requires 20% white and 1:72 requires 30 to 40% IIRC. This way, the model's paint looks like the same color as the real aircraft. And to add in the complexity, if you add varnish to the color sheme, all the paints will turn out darker. It is therefore quite hard to finish your model kit in exactly the right color you wanted from the start.

The Lighting you showed us on the page looks very nice. I would darken the blue a bit. Have you seen the same color on other aircraft? When I did my B-25 MLD (Dutch naval aviation service) skins, I did only have some black-white photographs. But, I did have a color picture of a Fairey Firefly (MLD of course) and took those colors for the B-25's. The aircraft flew in the same era with the MLD. A little later, I obtained the book "cammouflage en kentekens" wich showed that I was spot on.

Anyways, good luck with your skin!

Serval · #5 (**permalink**) 15th September 2005, 22:27

Here you can find what some French people think about it:

http://france-simulation.ipbhost.com...showtopic=2325

CWD · #6 (**permalink**) 16th September 2005, 02:15

Wow! Nice of you to go to that trouble for me, Serval. Still pretty in the dark about exact colors to use, but there's definitely some useful info there. The St. Ex profile and artwork especially look promising.

Thanks!