Jump to content

Gunze grays for Super Bugs ?


Recommended Posts

As the title says.............

I'm starting to spray a Hasegawa F/A-18F in 1/48th and using Gunze Mr Color H307 and H308.

I'm spraying straight onto the plastic to preserve the fine panel lines etc. and the paint is laying down nicely, but the colors look too blue to me...........

Am I doing something wrong ?

Keith

Link to post
Share on other sites

As the title says.............

I'm starting to spray a Hasegawa F/A-18F in 1/48th and using Gunze Mr Color H307 and H308.

I'm spraying straight onto the plastic to preserve the fine panel lines etc. and the paint is laying down nicely, but the colors look too blue to me...........

On the contrary, I find them too purple and too dark. You must lighten them by at least 15%. MM Acryl LGG and DGG are about right:

ghost_grays.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am not sure what you guys are looking at but I just compared the two Gunze Mr. Color colors to the fed Std. Color cards and they are both dead on using a daylight balance Ott Light. If you're intent is to play around with "scale color" then maybe the FS matches don't matter anyway.

'

Link to post
Share on other sites

I wouldn't stress about this, Mr. Color are usually very accurate when it comes to colors. You can always play around with lightening and darkening it to your like. Also, remember that photos taken outside in daylight will look much different than indoors. Also, especially on USN aircraft, the paint will weather HEAVILY: it will be bleached, mottled, touched up, and covered in grime and filth.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I found gunze H307 & H308 a little too blue for my taste. I generally use MM Acrylic range, but when it comes down to fs 36375 & 36320 I use Pactra paints A41 and A42 as I find them a little lighter than MM Acryls. But that's building 1/72 scale Hornets. I find them pretty good in contrast to grays used in decals and a good base to weather them further. With that being said I never compared my models to paint chips or anything else.

Link to post
Share on other sites

RichardL

Why would I compare to the color chips rather than the Fed Std. 3X5 card? Industry Standard specified by contract is the card. I spent almost thirty years dealing with this stuff and compliance to Govt. Contracts. The fan deck is a nice quick way to determine what a color looks like, but is not acceptable to meet any requirement for color correctness.

And the daylight balanced light works just fine. To be sure I did take it outside and check the two colors against the cards. They still match.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Looking again at my test spraying, I think I agree with RichardL - 'too purple' describes my perception of the Gunze colors better than 'too blue' and definitely too dark.

I'm not trying to match up the colors to a FS shade, rather to produce colors that looks right when I display my model.

I live in the UK and I've only seen one SuperBug in person, at Fairford Airshow last year, but that departed the show in full 'burner within minutes of my arrival so I didn't get a chance to check it out up close. Photos of that freshly-painted air-frame, taken under typical European lighting, do appear to match my Gunze test-spraying fairly well, but the model in front of me just looks wrong.

I understand that colors will appear different under different lighting conditions and that my monitor may not be precisely color-calibrated, but when I look through books and images on-line (admittedly mostly taken in bright sunshine), most SuperBugs appear paler and less purple/blue.

This image http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/michael_block/fa-18e_165898/images/fa-18e_165898_16_of_20.jpg seems to show the center-line fuel tank painted the same color as the air-frame undersides, presumably FS36375, despite the dirt.

However, in this image http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/michael_block/fa-18e/images/fa-18e_03_of_20.jpg the tank appears to have been painted a different shade, perhaps FS36320 ? Or is is just fresh FS36375 ?

Either way, my Gunze H308 test shot looks very similar to this tank, so I'm tempted to use H308 for the upper surfaces of my SuperBug then lighten the same paint a little to use on the undersides. Does this sound nuts ?

I'm a little worried about how the Afterburner decals would look on such modified colors, as they have are presumably printed to look right on the recommended H307 and H308 and might contrast too greatly with a lightened paint-scheme. Has anyone any experience of doing this ?

I apologize for asking questions that may have been discussed at length in the past here, but I did search through earlier threads without finding answers specifically relating to these Gunze colours. The stuff sprays beautifully and I have quite a bit of them in 'stock, so I'd like to use them for this build if I can - even if I have to mix them a little.....

Keith

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think there is a huge difference in what a lot of us perceive the most accurate color for a given subject and the actual color of the subject in life. When your only reference for a subject is images in a book or on a computer screen, the correct FS colors may just not look correct. When I was more focused on German WWII armor all the discussions around the true color of dunkelgelb went round and round with various color photos from the era, or color chips from recovered vehicles.

I find that models displayed indoors under normal lighting invariably appear too dark when most pictures of the subject are taken under bright natural light conditions.

Edited by Vaildog
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...