Accurate painting part 1: General thoughts

Few topics in modeller forums are more argued than “accurate” painting of our 1/48 warbirds with regard to correct colour tones, camouflage patterns or hidden areas such as cockpit details. These discussions have been lasting for years, indicating that many questions still remain unanswered and no real sources of truth exist.

Certainly, there are unquestioned authorities such as Dana Bell or gold standard publications like the Official Monogram aircraft color guides that provide excellent references and guidance when it comes to colours and paints of aircrafts.

So why does this still seem to be an issue when it comes to modelling? Let’s find out!

Scale effect

First, one needs to consider the scale effect. This phenomenon will cause identical colours to look darker on the scaled model than on the real thing. The smaller the scale, the heavier the impact. Model colour manufactures do not consider this, as they want their products to be applicable to all scales.

This also applies to the appearance of shine. Gloss finishes will appear less shiny from the distance. Imagine sitting on a beach and staring at a cruise ship on the horizon: this vessel, usually finished gloss-white, will appear darker and flatter than when seen on the pier.

But there is more to consider when it comes to accuracy. Colours aren’t all if we want to recreate a historically correct model.

Contemporary photographic material

We could of course revert to original photographic and film material from the WW2 era to use it as accurate documentation source for our build project. However, this approach shows some limitations:

• Colours: The vast majority of available photos are monochrome, as colour photography was still in its infancy during that period. Nowadays, AI can easily fill this gap and add colour to black & white photos, but the outcome will be restricted by the quality of the source material. Also, the process of validating the results remains an open question due to missing references.

  
  

• Quality: Films and Photos have aged and therefore decreased from their original quality. The shades and tones of the few available colour photo material have deteriorated by aging and reproduction, altering the initial colours.

  
  

• Content: Even if a single accurate picture of a specific warbird is found, it will only capture parts of it, never the entire plane. Any paint modifications or camouflage patterns on the invisible parts remain undisclosed, leaving us with assumptions and more or less guessing how it possibly was.

  
  

Next, we have light effects.

The same colour will look different when captured in bright sunlight, shadowed areas or from a certain angle. A modeller can recreate this illusion by lightening exposed panels or darkening shadowed or recessed areas.

Modifications in the field

On most theaters of operations, appearances of the aircrafts frequently changed. Winter camouflages were applied and removed, parts were repaired, repainted, replaced or removed, upgrades and features retrofitted etc. Often, these field actions were performed with whatever was available, including captured or left gear. It was not uncommon that Russian or Italian colours appeared on a German aircraft in the Eastern and Mediterranean theaters, and vice versa.

A good example of such continuous changes can be observed on the LaGG 3 flown by Russian ace Leonid Galchenko. Several photos of his bird exist, taken at different angles and under different seasonal conditions. On none of these photos this aircraft looks twice the same.

Preserved originals

Finally, we can revert to the preserved originals, can’t we? There sure is a war museum somewhere in your wider neighbourhood!

In museums, you will usually find 2 main categories of exhibits:

• Unrestored originals, left in the condition in which they were found: These can be specific inner or outer parts, major structural parts such as a fuselage or a wing, or even more or less complete planes. Generally, they will be in poor shape and conform to all of the above-mentioned restrictions.

  
  

• Aircrafts restored to their initial, often factory-new  condition: They will usually have been rebuilt with parts from different sources, and of course repainted. These provide an excellent source for detailed information - but again, there is no guarantee for full authenticity, especially when it comes to peripheral or inner parts.

Although some original types such as P-51s still exist in relatively wide numbers, there is a frightening shortage of some others. For instance, not a single entire specimen of iconic birds as the Nakajima B5N Kate, TBD Devastator, Dornier 217 or Junkers 188 has survived worldwide!

Changing service instructions

Throughout all pre-war and WW2, all Air Force authorities from the major players frequently changed their service instructions. These were not limited to camouflage schemes, but also had impact on inner parts such as cockpit painting. For instance, USN aircraft developed from the pre-war “yellow wings” scheme to overall light gray, blue / gray, 3-tone mid war scheme to overall dark blue, with differences between Atlantic and Pacific theaters. German cockpits evolved from RLM 02 to RLM 66 colours, but not for all types of aircrafts – not even considering their countless camouflage patterns. Aircrafts from other air forces saw comparable evolution during WW2.

In practice, these changing instructions had to be implemented in the field, which naturally did not happen on the day the instruction was issued, but rather on maintenance or other operational outage occasions. This led to transition times and mixed appearances.

For us modellers, it can hence be tricky to find the correct match.

Different manufacturers

To make confusion complete, many aircrafts were produced by different manufacturing companies. As an example, the Bf 109 was not only built by Messerschmitt, but also issued from the production sites of Erla, WNF and AGO amongst others. The same was also true for the F4F / FM-2 Wildcat (Grumman & General Motors), the A6M Zero (Mitsubishi & Nakajima) and many more.

These companies had their own manufacturing processes, home-brewed paint recipes, paint templates and sometimes even specific parts.

All of this resulted into small variances in colour tones, camouflage patterns and other differences, some of them very noticeable.

Conclusion

With all of the above, the sad truth is that whatever your build project is, you can get very close - but it will likely not conform by 100% to the original.

Is this a problem? No. All of us modellers have a right to artistic freedom by nature.

Also, always keep in mind that we build models and no clones of the real thing.

Read on in my next article on how these considerations impacts on painting in 1/48…