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More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 2:55 am
by grizzlymc
This one is probably mainly for Slug, Wingco and RMD but all contributions are welcome.

Time moves on and our Christmas game will celebrate the 80th anniversary of 1941. This will involve russkis, med, RAF in France, and the Pacific. The afternoon game will involve some yanks in Hawaii enjoying a target rich environment whilst the Japanese NAF tries to sink their battlefleet.

The Japanese green for Kates seems to be quite a bluish green, almost like Mr D's russkis, is that right?
The underside grey on Kates and the entire aircraft on Vals and Zekes is uncommonly pale commpared to allied undersides and lacks any blue in hue.
US Army aircraft palle grey undersides were a lot darker than Jap grey.

Does all this make sense?

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 8:36 am
by Slugbalancer
I haven't painted any japanese aircraft (yet), so I can't add anything from my own experience.
This website would be my starting point though...
https://j-aircraft.com/research/colormix.htm

Hope it helps.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 9:30 am
by grizzlymc
Fantabulous, thanks.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 9:44 am
by RMD
I'll try to find the article, but there was an excellent online piece about IJN aircraft colours and the upshot of it was that the ash-grey colour so beloved of wargamers was in fact a pale grey-green.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:07 am
by grizzlymc
I've seen it described as a yellow grey.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:25 am
by RMD
grizzlymc wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:07 am I've seen it described as a yellow grey.
Yes. It's a difficult colour to define and probably looks very different depending on the light conditions (see also NATO 'Yellow Olive'...). It certainly wasn't that pale ash grey though.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:34 pm
by Buff Orpington
It's days like this that make me wish I hadn't binned my IPMS reference list.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:39 pm
by Buff Orpington
It's days like this that make me wish I hadn't binned my IPMS reference list.
However this may help
[url[https://www.ipmsstockholm.se/home/urban ... rts-japan/][/url]

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 12:01 am
by grizzlymc
Got them, trouble is that I don't know what Humbrol 156 was.

Re: More plane colour questions

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:41 am
by RMD
Some of us still keep the older gods... Humbrol 156 was a satin grey.