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Tomcat TPS in Tamiya Paint


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I stopped at a hobby shop on the road about a month ago and just baught all the Tamiya Gray colors I could find, because they are hard for me to come by and I like airbrushing them.

So, I'm about ready to paint my Hasegawa Tomcat (VF-31 Iraqi War), and need to know what Tamiya colors best match the TPS colors. I don't need a perfect match as I'm sure all the weathering will negate the need for that! They are:

FS36375

FS36320

FS35237

I know there are some of you out there with the answer at the top of your head. Let the brain download begin!

:nanner:

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I'm not a Tamiya user myself so I went looking for Tamiya paint mixes and of course the site that sounded perfect on Google doesn't exist anymore. Hopefully someone will be able to help you with this but it may take some trial and error on your part. Mix, paint, repeat.

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From Vallejo Paints chart...

FS 36320 = XF22 RLM Grey

FS 36375 = XF19 Sky Grey

FS 35327 = XF20 Medium Grey

I hope this Helps

Trent.

Thanks for the link. I checked these out and compared my Tamya paints to my Model Masters for a sanity check- and I'm glad I did! They arn't even close on XF22 & XF20!

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  • 12 years later...

To the best of my knowledge:

 

- No acrylic bottles for 320, 375, 327

 

- There is a new lacquer line: https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list/lacquer/kit82103.htm

That at least has the 320 and 375.

 

327 won't be too difficult to obtain from 320. Need to darken it a little bit and adda tad bit of blue. 

 

In general, if you insist on acrylic, Hobby Aqueous has all three colors covered. Though, their 327 is not a very good match (too purple IMO).

 

But there are other new lines such as MRP lacquers, and AK acrylics, the latter looking like Tamiya for the most part. MRP has the TPS covered. Not sure about AK and too lazy to google.

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There are no Acrylic bottle matches. The above posts are true. They make all 3 in spray cans. But I don’t think their 35237 is close. They have a pretty good match mix on the Tamiya F-14D Kit. If you try to use paints that aren’t close and want to use any low viz decals, you’re in for a disappointment. MrP, AK, Mission and others make acrylics...

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2 hours ago, hawkwrench said:

I think I decided to paint my tomcat in the 2 colors. 

Xf-20 on top and sides, with Xf-19 underneath.

Tim

 

XF-19 may work for light ghost gray (I would add more white and a tiny bit of blue to XF-19), but I strongly urge you to reconsider XF-20.

 

XF-20 is a tricky color. The color pallet above is highly deceiving. In real life, XF-20 has a distinct beige tinge to it. Nowhere near dark ghost gray. It looks like a dirt gray, with a hint of earth tones, not sky tones.

 

I would say if you lighten XF-20 with quite a bit of white, it may pass as 36440 Gull gray for the pre-TPS Tomcats. 

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1 hour ago, hawkwrench said:

What about Mr. Hobby H307 and H308 then?

 

Tim

 

307 and 308 are great IMO. I use them a lot. For the darkest gray the code is H337. But that is a little off as I mentioned earlier (too purplish). If you checkout my 1/72 Tomcat and 1/48 F-18F builds in my signature, you can see all these colors in both scales. 

 

Now, I use Hobby aqueous (acrylic, or acrylic lacquer whatever they call). But Mr. Hobby (pure lacquer version) is very similar to these from what I can tell from many other builds I have seen.

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20 hours ago, Janissary said:

To the best of my knowledge:

 

- No acrylic bottles for 320, 375, 327

 

- There is a new lacquer line: https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list/lacquer/kit82103.htm

That at least has the 320 and 375.

 

327 won't be too difficult to obtain from 320. Need to darken it a little bit and adda tad bit of blue. 

 

In general, if you insist on acrylic, Hobby Aqueous has all three colors covered. Though, their 327 is not a very good match (too purple IMO).

 

But there are other new lines such as MRP lacquers, and AK acrylics, the latter looking like Tamiya for the most part. MRP has the TPS covered. Not sure about AK and too lazy to google.

 

I found adding green to the 35237 works a charm.

 

Worked great on my RAAF Hornet, but not sure if our 35237 looks different to that used in the US

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If you can, I would strongly suggest you pick up AK Interactive Real Colors. If your local shop can order from Steven's International, they carry all of the individual colors. I just used their 36375 mixed about 60/40 with Tamiya's lacquer thinner and it airbrushed beautifully out of my Grex. I'd be willing to bet the AK paints use almost the same formula as Tamiya, just matched to Federal Standard colors. I just ordered about $150 worth from my local HTUSA for my squadron/Marine builds.

 

Two other excellent lines of paint are Ammo acrylics by Mig Jimenez and the Hataka lacquers. All five of the Prowlers I built for Q-2 were painted with both of these paints right out of the bottle with no thinner added. They were simply added to the color cup and airbrushed at about 18-20 psi. Very smooth application, dry to the touch in a couple of minutes and great coverage. 

 

While each lines 36375 varied slightly in shade, they were very close to the 375 color chip in my fan deck. The biggest positive is this......while an aircraft, a missile and a bomb may all be painted 36375 on the real item, they all are different shades for a number of reasons. Using these three brands of paint literally give you the same effect. While I haven't decided which one will be which yet, I will use one brand for aircraft, one for missiles and one for bombs.

 

Both the Hataka and AK paints were cleaned out of my airbrush using low odor lacquer thinner (Klean Strip brand) from Home Depot and the Ammo paints were cleaned up using Windex.

 

For me personally, I hated Vallejo (and their color matches suck), Mission Models and Mr. Color. For the latter two, I just can't seem to get the thinning ratios down. Vallejo just sucks.......my personal opinion only. Moving forward, the only four paint brands I'll use will be Tamiya (flat white XF-2 and NATO black XF-69 are indispensable)!, AK RC, Hataka lacquer and Ammo.

Edited by Dave Roof
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Here’s a couple of mixes that came from Model Art 236. These grays are prone to subjectivity. Pick the ones you like, put a dab on a piece of cardboard, let it dry then hold it next to your as595 and compare. That’s my scientific method! I personally like Xtracolor because I like a ready made gloss (the less coats the better) and they spray without sticking to the needle like acrylics.

36320=

xf-66.  11

xf2.  7

xf24.  2

 

36375=

xf2.  15

xf24.  3

xf66   2

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Dave - unfortunately the AK Real Color Air TPS paints are scale affected so heavily that they don’t work at all for TPS if you’re using low viz decals. The paints look nice but the 36320 is so light that 36375 decals are darker than the paint. And 36375 decals have barely any contrast to 35237 paint. I tested them out and was very hopeful but the results were disappointing. If you’re not using TPS decals, then you’re good... 

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11 minutes ago, Brian P: Fightertown Decals said:

Dave - unfortunately the AK Real Color Air TPS paints are scale affected so heavily that they don’t work at all for TPS if you’re using low viz decals. The paints look nice but the 36320 is so light that 36375 decals are darker than the paint. And 36375 decals have barely any contrast to 35237 paint. I tested them out and was very hopeful but the results were disappointing. If you’re not using TPS decals, then you’re good... 

 

Hey Brian, do you have any photos of the test shots you did?

 

Also I've often scale affected many of my builds, but am only really now going into the TPS realm. Given I've a stack of your decals, do you recommend standard bottle colours, decals, then hit the kit with fades and the like? Or fade the overall paint before decals as necessary?

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I generally like Mr. Color for TPS but 36320 might be a bit on the dark side...at least with Fightertown decals. The data decals almost disappeared on this build.

 

u2hvan8.jpg

 

But this Hornet with Flying Leathernecks and MAW Decals seemed to have a bit more contrast with the decals. In both pics, pay particular attention to the small data markings like warning triangles, etc.

 

ZRvcXuP.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by picknpluck
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Don’t know what other decal makers colors are but we color match print to fs. Cartograf guarantees within +\- 2% color shift. I used those same 35227 decals on test plastic and had a much better result. Tried them on MM enamels and Tamiya spray cans of 35237/36320/36375  and they color worked perfectly... 

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