I am going to paint a German Halftrack in Dark Yellow, or Dunklegelb, as they call it. I have both Testors Acryl Dunklegelb and Model Master enamel Dunklegelb. The Acryl number is 4796 and the MM number is 2095. Both of these are the same color when I compare them after painting test samplings . The problem I have is that both of these colors are more a shade of Green than Yellow. The box art is more yellow than green. Does that jibe with what the actual color of Dunklegelb is in your experience?
willshak wrote in news:jIudndUgIs6UKanQnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:
The simple answer is in the nature of the original paint. Dunkelgelb was the base color from it's introduction until mid/late 1944 when rot bruan or olivgrun or even red primer became the base.
As a base color it was applied at the factory during builds or rebuilds.
The paint was supplied as a paste that could be mixed with almost anything gas/water/kero etc. It could also be applied by paint gun (part of the vehicles basic equipment), mops, brush, rags, whatever was available.
The quality of the original paste, how long it was stored, what it was mixed with, the proportions of the mix, applicator, how clean the vehicle was, adnauseum all affected final appearances.
Also interpetations of B&W film, do-da do-da.
Then of course how dirty was it at the point in time you are modeling, and dirty with what? Back in VA my cars turned green in the spring from the pollen covering everything.
Also the differences between your 1/35 scale model and 1/1 scale vehicle will affect perceptions of color.
IOW unless you are a Wehrmacht veteran with an extraordinary memory not affected by failing memory, exact matches don't exist. And even then you probably had other things to worry about then the color of your vehicle.
Floquil railroad paints have some yellows that some people reccomend for Panzer yellow. Just eyeball the rack it will be obvious.
willshak wrote: : : The problem I have is that both of these colors are more a shade of : Green than Yellow. : The box art is more yellow than green. : The paints are close enough. There is no such thing as an "exact" match to start with, and if there were, it would only match that particular sample.
I suspect that greenish-yellow is hard to print, with a high degree of inducing nausea, so most artwork goes with a mustardy color.
I remember one of the model mags I bought that was decades old, there were some German vets who wrote in that the colors were too cartoonish, so I guess a bit more matte to the colors.
Since I've started modeling (again) I've noticed paints a bit more. Look at cars, see how panels are redone and painted and have a different fade pattern. Look at rust, things like that. Just ding around doors.
Add all the other comments, you don't want to do too much, but its all sort of relative. Though I do find a lot of grief with people who really trash their models with weathering. There are brass in any army, and even if there is a war on, things do get washed, painted, scrubbed and all that at least once in a while. If for no other reason than to make the enlisted life hell. And it does reduce breakdowns if you can see things beginning to wear.
As for the stuff I worked on , I get real picky. But most people never got up close and personal to a U-2 or a B-1 or an F-111, or a AC-130U or an MC-130H. Not to mention other bits and types.
I have seen brand new spanking fresh from the paint shop tank colors that look one way, let them sit outdoors for a few months or years, totally different. Amazing at how it fades.
I have seen some research that with the problems the Germans had in just keeping factories open, standardization was more a wishful bit of thinking than reality. They were probably lucky they got a can through the supply chain, let alone close to a standard color.
Thanks to all. I just thought that the color of German armor in N.Africa would be closer to a sand color if it was meant to help camouflage the vehicle, more like the British Armor. This color I have should be called Hellspargel (light asparagus).
willshak wrote: : : Thanks to all. : I just thought that the color of German armor in N.Africa would be : closer to a sand color if it was meant to help camouflage the vehicle, : Oh. Now you have done it! The DAK had a different selection of paints, just as in the Balkans (Greek campaign). So, no, the Dunkelgelb isn't correct for the DAK (but, not many people will get excited if you go with Dunkelgelb).
Gunze Sangyo (now GSI Creos) are the only people I know who offered a DAK color set in their "Panzer Colors" sets from many years back. The bad news is, I don't know if it is in their current color line up.
You can try "Gaia Color", a Japanese company that is offered by HLJ and "Lucky Model". They have a "Tank Color" set that I believe includes a DAK color.
None of the above are acrylics, however, but synthetic lacquer. And, Gaia Color, or perhaps Lucky Model, are not fast to restock, as I am painfully aware.
Lifecolor may offer a DAK/Balkans Wehrmacht color set, but given the "interesting" color of their Soviet tank color set, I wouldn't recommend Lifecolor.
FWIW, the DAK tended to be a light-medium brown color. You can be as anal with the color as you wish. :-)
Well, I actually have some chips of the dark yellow paint off a late war Stug III and it shows more of a medium bright yellowish color with just a slight trace of green. (Grey Poupon mustard in bright sunlight is a close match, just a shade too dark tho)
So like noted by others before, it depends on how the paste was mixed, applied, and then how it weathered. Factory applied colors tend to be more consistent, but even then they varied. (and even in this day and age still do !!)
And then you have the "scale effect" and different sources of lighting, I (if I'm serious) only check colors in natural sunlight. There are enough differences because of this and other reasons that it can get mind numbingly confusing as to what is the proper (if you can call it that) color. Also, one can't trust old color film to be accurate......
I've been a painter for 28+ years, I can just look at a color and tell ya what ya need to mix to make it, and had my color acuity checked in a laboratory and I do see color better than 99% of humans. Oddly, on the one hand it is nice and an asset to my work, on the other hand it means the kaleidoscope of colors in spring and fall foliage can almost give me a headache...
My advice is to just paint it to what you think is close. Since most models are viewed under artificial light, it really does not matter as long as you are close.
OK. The model is the Tamiya Hanomag Sdkfz 251/1 and Dark Yellow is the color the instructions say for N Africa. They didn't say Dunklegelb, but that's Dark Yellow in German. I do have the Model Master Afrika Braun #2102 enamel and had thought it would be better than Dunklegelb. I do prefer Acryl over enamel just because of the chemicals involved and cleanup (I have a septic tank). I also have the Testors Acryl US Army/Marine Gulf #4812 which is a little less yellow than the Afrika Braun. I also have tons of folk art acrylic paints left over from when my wife gave Tole painting classes in house years ago, so I can tint the Gulf color to match the Afrika Braun color.
Well, in that case I suspect colour will be the least of your authenticity concerns...
Just glue the bugger together and enjoy the experience, I picked up a Dragon 251 a few years ago because it was going cheap and I thought I'd like to see what a modern kit with all the bells and whistles was like. Just opening the box scares me and it goes back on the shelf every time, so whatever you do you'll get more fun out of your old Tamiya than I have had with the Dragon. Plus as the 251 I got was an early release in the series, the rivet counters still have issues with it...
Speaking of rivets, this is the second 251/1 I've built. The other was built many years ago and I still have it and the instructions. Both are Tamiya and the instructions are exactly the same. The older one is painted Testors Panzer Black Grey (Schwarzgrau). The older one has no rivets at all anywhere on the model, yet the old instructions shows rivets in the model building steps and a pic of the completed model with rivets all over the place. This newer model has all the rivets. I only noticed this when I put the two side by side today. Were there ones that were welded and had no rivets?
IIRC, the Ausf. C version came in two flavours, rivitted and welded, I'm not sure whether the difference was due to a change during the production run or vehicles coming from different manufacturers - possibly a mix of both (different builders changing over at different times) as (again IIRC) the Ausf. Ds were all welded, and the Ausf. A (damn few of those, I've still to find any reference pix of their different style of interior on-line) and Ausf. Bs were all rivetted.
willshak wrote: : : : OK. The model is the Tamiya Hanomag Sdkfz 251/1 and Dark Yellow is the : color the instructions say for N Africa. : That kit is old enough that the painting directions are a bit dodgy. On the other hand, Tamiya probably considers "dark yellow" to be okay. There is some precedent for this - many vehicles were shipped directly from Germany to the front lines w/out a stop at the paint booth. : : I do have the Model Master Afrika Braun #2102 enamel and had thought it : would be better than Dunklegelb. : Go for it, then. It is very difficult to prove either way that the color you choose is "wrong". :-)
It is virtually impossible to build that kit incorrectly - I tried, and didn't manage to build it "wrong". Poorly, yeah. Wrong - nope. :-(
willshak wrote in news:LaudndEMPrcx-6rQnZ2dnUVZ_o- snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:
Real 251s came in two flavors, rivetted and welded. I was always under the impression that the Tami was rivetted but if you didn't care for the rivets remove 'em and make em welded. The automotive components were identical and both could be found in the same unit.
I think Ds were much less likely to be rivetted (I researched a while ago but of course recall is slipping) Cs more likely. After a certain point no more rivetted were made 41? 42?.
True, but (I had it a bit wrong in my previous post) apparently the interior of the Ausf. B 251/1 differed considerably from that of the C/D, and where any of the /1 interior was retained in the other /n variants it would differ also. I got mixed up because I picked up the Revell 251/3 (a re-boxed Zvezda, it transpired) about a year ago (a victory of stupidity - or greed, it was cheap - over experience), only to find most (possibly all) 251/3s were built as Ausf. As. Never mind, I thought, there's all the bits in there to do a 251/1 - and that's when I found out it had the Ausf. C/D interior... To make things worse, not only can I not find the Ausf. B interior on-line, I've never got up close and personal with the real thing. What I did get to crawl over was a Post-War Czech OT-810 cosmetically altered to look like an Ausf.D, so my photos are useless - it turns out converting an Ausf. D to an OT-810 pretending to be an Ausf. D would be a fair old task too...
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