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Tomcat TPS in Tamiya Paint


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8 hours ago, jenshb said:

The contrast I see on these samples matches fairly well with what I have seen on F-15s (compass gray scheme)

 

Below is a photo of an F-15A taken by me at a local airshow back in the day under overcast sky.  The F-15A is wearing the 595b colors:

 

F-15A.jpg.f9159ac2b4abaed9f593d4d5b9b02b57.jpg

 

Hopefully you will be able to see the difference between the two colors on the inside of the vertical tail.

Edited by RichardL
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Oh yes, I can see the contrast between the two grays on the tail, and that matches the contrast I see on my FS595a fan deck far better than the colour matches you posted from your colour samples.

 

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17 hours ago, jenshb said:

Oh yes, I can see the contrast between the two grays on the tail, and that matches the contrast I see on my FS595a fan deck far better than the colour matches you posted from your colour samples.

 

 

I don't like to say it, but I think there's a bit of optical illusion here 🙂 The soft edges of the camo weakens the contrast a bit. I draw 2 "paint chips" here on the photo, the contrast on my monitor is not that weak? Certainly stronger than it appears on the photo of the fan deck.

 

Not sure how fan decks are printed, my understanding is that printing base on CMYK can reproduce even less colors than digital photos/displays(RGB model),  so I would prefer actual paint chips.Unbenannt.png.0b821a92ce402e8ff6fe07aab023e530.png

 

 

 

Edited by delide
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1 hour ago, jenshb said:

Which combination do you think looks like it matches the real thing better?

 

As delide stated above, most color decks are just reproductions using the print process CMYK, and there are several variables that can affect the printed colors:  ink/toner, printer, calibration.  This is one reason why fan decks are not approved to use on the full scale for color matching.  On the other hand, color chips are actually painted on by real paint.  However, since this is scale modeling, and I hate to say it, but using your fan deck might give somewhat of a scale effect.

Edited by RichardL
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2 hours ago, jenshb said:

And now compare the contrast between those colours with the paint samples that Richard has provided...  Which combination do you think looks like it matches the real thing better?

 

Unbenannt.png.ace9a026a473c8af85cbea988b3e232b.png

 

The colors appear to be quite different due to different camera and lighting, so it's difficult. When putting the colors of the fan deck side by side, the contrast does appear to be stronger too, maybe indeed closer. But the chips do not look all that bad,  in fact when put together in the upper left corner, the difference in contrast compared to fan is not that great.

 

Anyway, color from different photos are unrealiabe and can not be compared, my points is just that we can get different impression of contrast. And I have no real thing to compare at all, but just from the technology point of view alone, CMYK is much inferior even to RGB(monitors can reproduce way more colors than CMYK printing). If the paint on the chip is authentic, then the paint chip must be the closest to the real thing fresh from the factory.

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Well, when presented that way, the contrast doesn't look as great as first seen.  Everything that is made - paint, inks, pigments as well as processes will always have a tolerance - an accepted deviation from a nominal, so some variation is to be expected.  I'm not saying my FS595a fan is the last word in accuracy, but it matches fairly well (with some allowance for tolerance) with what I see on hardware as well as a number of photos where the colours are a known specification.

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1 hour ago, RichardL said:

Took some photos of the TPS color chips outdoors earlier today under indirect sunlight:

 

tps_chips_outdoors_01.png

 

tps_chips_outdoors_02.png

 

tps_chips_outdoors_03.png

 

What do you think?

 

On 3/20/2021 at 1:51 PM, RichardL said:

God forbid that the decal makers should base the colors of their decals on some company's paint colors.  That would be a grave sin.

 

Regarding the TPS colors, the total cost of all three official US government color chips is less than the average price of a Tamiya 1/48 scale Tomcat kit.  Therefore, it is best if the decal makers use the actual color chips.

 

tps_color_chips.png

Those are not the same color chips you posted on March 20th.

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Just now, GW8345 said:

 

Those are not the same color chips you posted on March 20th.

 

Those are exactly the same color chips I posted on March 20th, and this is a fact.  I only have one set. The pictures I posted on March 20th were taken indoors at my workbench under artificial lighting.

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1 hour ago, RichardL said:

 

Those are exactly the same color chips I posted on March 20th, and this is a fact.  I only have one set. The pictures I posted on March 20th were taken indoors at my workbench under artificial lighting.

Bullcrap!!!

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1 hour ago, RichardL said:

 

Believe what you want!  Again, do you really think the chips are somehow different from one version to the next?

No amount of sun light, direct or indirect is going to fade/change those colors that much.

 

I've seen the real paint (freshly painted) in both indoor and outdoor lighting and it never changed that much.

 

The first paint chips you posted aren't the same paint chips you just posted, period.

 

Dude, if you want to blow smoke up people's rear you better light a cigarette and put some more effort in it because the effort you are putting into it right now ain't cutting it.

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16 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

No amount of sun light, direct or indirect is going to fade/change those colors that much.

 

You are illogical and hopeless.  Explain to me in the picture below how the same two colors on the F-15A change so much, and the top F-15A is not even indoors:

 

Two_F-15As.jpg

 

How about these?

 

two_saabs.jpg.3760049f9112d9fd2535aeb0e1dd7dd8.jpg

 

I'm done wasting time on you.

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2 hours ago, Sabre Freak said:

How the big boys roll

 

 

 

My thanks to Bob for clarifying with visuals what I couldn't quite do with words. 

 

 

I wonder if VMFA-323 got the memo about using color chips before embarking on their final combat cruise in the Hornet? 🙂 

p.jpeg?fv_content=true&size_mode=5

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Cartograph has an entire ancient monastery of monks, high in the Himalayas, who spend their days using prehistoric sea glass eyedroppers and hand forged magnifying lenses to custom mix FS matched inks. They carefully grind rare, endangered flowers and powdered white rhino livers, and drop by drop ensure 99.7% color accuracy of their inks to the FS595 chips (not the fan deck, you neanderthal!). Once the color is perfectly matched, it is drizzled across the bosom of an unwashed virgin and hand dripped into tiny platinum tins that are then shipped to Italy for production. Only the highest quality decal companies are allowed access to these perfectly matched FS decal inks.

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