I’ve been out of aircraft modelling for a long time and am re-entering with an attempt on Hasegawa’s recent 1/48 A6M2b.
Has the above-mentioned brownish grey-green Ameiro color been accepted as the “correct” base color, these days? I so much prefer the previously accepted dove-grey tone, but want to get it right (and please myself too, of course!).
What do you think?
Tamiya XF-76, gray green. No Zero was overall gray.
Which forum are you going to use for this discussion, Brumbles? You’ve got basically the same one started on General Discussion.
After I posted it there, I realized this was probably a better place for it.
Okay, I’ll reply over here.
Brumbles, you and I are in the same boat as far as getting back into models.
Has the olive gray been accepted for the Model 21 Zero? Yes and no.
I used to edit the IPMS-USA newsletter for the Japanese airplane SIG. A couple of years before I took that on, Mr. James Lansdale (J-Aircraft.com) published a paper in it circa 1996 about the color. Since then he has revised his essay several times, generally making it better. He was probably the first Westerner to publish color measurements, but the discussion had been going on in Japan since the 1970s, sometimes with scathing comments.
If you look at Japanese commercial art of the last 20 years, you’ll see varied interpretations. The 2012 film Eien no Zero (永遠の０) portrays the plane in something roughly akin to the FS 26350-ish color that Mr. Lansdale found repeatedly on relics. Yet many Japanese modellers have not really embraced it, or go just part way toward it in their color selections. Likewise, Western modellers still have varied interpretations, with some being extreme.
Personally, I believe that the relics have yellowed somewhat over the years. If you know paint, then you know what yellowing does to gray. (It moves it towards greens.) Some yellowing is likely when the formula contains a lot of white, as these controversial light and medium colors do.
One thing Mr. Lansdale failed to discuss in his earliest writings was that the color of the paint varies a good deal depending on lighting and angle. At some, it is rather green. At others, it has some warm brown with barely any green. In other words, you are likely to get fairly close to a metameric match (a match for some purposes but not all) if you work at it, but you’ll probably never get all the activity that was in the real paint. I doubt that any model paint maker has duplicated that aspect of it.
If you think of the boundaries for the color, we know there is some brown or warmth to it because of the word “ameiro” being used in a JNAF report to describe it. We don’t know from that report how much ameiro there was. Some may be the effect of paint aging, but not all. The officer said it had a little ameiro in it when it was new.
The Japanese have several interpretations of the word ameiro, but none of them is a green. Think of yellowish-tans, ambers, burnt oranges, honey, etc. So, the greener one makes a model, the farther he gets away from the Japanese naval officer’s description of the Mitsubishi Zero as of 2/42.
The handling manual calls the color nezumi iro, which also is not a green.
So, your model probably should not be the color of pistachio ice cream or a celery stalk, unless you wish to depict the green-extreme of the paint or something unusual. Likewise, you probably do not want your model to be beige.
You raise the traditional Japanese color name “ameiro”. As far as anyone knows, that word was used just the one time by the one officer to describe the color. The Japanese have some different interpretations of that color name, but they are not greens. For example, see “ameiro tamanegi” (carmelized onions), making a Google search with these: 飴色たまねぎ Ameiro tamanegi is a round onion that is sauteed, sometimes up to 20 minutes.
What is a little amusing about all the ink on this subject is that most of the Western writers have never personally seen a new Model 21 Zero. And neither have I.
Thank you, Spruesome – interesting and illuminating!
I wonder why there are so few contemporary color photos to eliminate doubt? I can’t believe color film was entirely unknown to the Japanese, though maybe it was, it was brand-new as a consumer-product in Germany and the US at the time and Japan was not nearly as camera-mad as they became with the post-war economic boom.
Thanks for that extensive response, very interesting.
No mention of the amber protective coating? Has that been totally debunked now too?
regards,
Jack
Thanks Spruesome!!!
This seems to come up every few months, I wish the mods would just ‘sticky’ a post somewhere here. I’ve read the article on J-aircraft multiple times and think you’ve boiled it down to it’s basic concept.
Personally I’ve avoided the whole issue by only building late war natural metal and green over grey aircraft- guess it’s a little cowardly!
jgeratic, there probably was not an amber protective coating on the Zero, at least not as a factory application. (Someone in a unit may have decided to put some varnish on a plane or two, as some of our pilots had their planes waxed.) The paint system for the Zero was at least three different layers well into Model 52 production, so no additional topcoat was necessary. The lower coating was a terra cotta colored primer. The intermediate layer was a sort of khaki colored surfacer, which is close enough to the topcoat “nezumi iro” to have caused confusion in examining relics. (See the A6M5 central fuselage at the Imperial War Museum, a weathered but unmolested example.) One Japanese researcher, Mr. Owaki, once believed there was yet another intermediate coating above that for the dark green planes. I do not know his current thinking. And then the topcoat. I don’t think Mr. Lansdale’s initial writings in Asahi Journal dealt with these layers. It also did not attempt to measure the plethora of colors on badly deteriorated relics.
If you like the neutral or almost neutral (achromatic) grays, then go with them, but understand you’re modelling a plane that’s been in tropical sun for maybe six months or more.
The amber protective coating (“varnish”) is an issue with the A5M “Claude” and possibly also some other navy planes. It was discussed in a Model Art of the middle 1990s but I did not find their explanation to be very thorough, and I have not spent much time researching it. (I can read Japanese but not speedily.) A researcher by the name of David Aiken had some comments on it 25 years ago.
Brumbles, only the wealthy nations had good color film. Japan was not the developed nation it is today, nor was it a leader yet in film manufacturing or optics. Moreover, the pilots did not usually have enough money to own cameras, and even if they had, color film was not available to consumers. The Japanese did make a color movie or two prior to the war, but I believe they have been lost. We do not see the few color photos that they took of their planes until about 1945, which is too late to show the Model 21 Zero new. Those few photos were probably not a case of aircrew snapping a casual shot or two, because developing color film is a special process which I suspect was not available to the ordinary airman. They were most likely taken at the direction of officers for publicity or propaganda. There are a small number of the Ki-45 kai.
Gamera, I too avoided the modelling issue until I saw Mr. Aiken’s comments about the numerous perceived colors from the one paint and saw color film of a Sonia which showed the effect as the camera passed by the plane. I also recalled the effect of metallic paint (which this was not). I am no longer reluctant to pick one of those perceived colors from the mid-range and mix model paint.
NathanT, I suspect my mixes are pretty far from the new Tamiya XF-76, which Tamiya claim to have developed for Zero models. If it is like the color of the cap, that would be at the very far end of the green interpretation, possibly too far towards green. I do not see any “ameiro” in the color of that cap. Have a look at FS _6350 to get an idea of what Mr. Lansdale and his helpers have been pointing at for nearly 20 years. Incidentally, Mr. Lansdale had concluded his early article with something akin to your blanket statement that there were never any neutral or blue-gray Zeroes, only more cautious. He has since dropped that paragraph, and wisely so. One may infer from the relics of three or four dozen different planes and some color standards whatever one likes, but I think we cannot conclusively rule out the possibility of some other colors, too. It pays to keep an open mind about these things.
It would be better if we modellers stopped using the term “ameiro” to describe the color of the Zero, because no Japanese that I know of has ever asserted that the plane was ameiro. What the one officer wrote in a footnote was exactly what we do when we have color chip that’s close but not exact. “It’s like X but it has a little Y in it.” To paraphrase him, it’s J3 but it has a little ameiro in it. And his description applied only to the Mitsubishi-built Zero. The Nakajima-built Model 21, which would become the more numerous, had not been produced yet when he wrote his comment.
Very interesting. I do enjoy this topic and always learn new information. Here’s my 2 cents. I read somewhere that the color was named after a popular caramel colored candy in Japan at the time called “Ame-hiro”. As Nathan said, for scale modeling purposes, XF-76 is supposed to be the closest to this elusive color. I think Tamiya came out with this shade on the heels of their 1/32 model 21. Being a Japanese company, I’m inclined to trust their research. Regardless, I have been using it and like the results…kind of a brownish grey. Here’s an example…
I personally wouldn’t go by cap colors in interpreting Tamiya’s paint color. I’d bet its not an exact match to the actual paint. I don’t think anyone can definitively say what color the model 21 Zero was. As suggested, maybe there are a few variations of the color, not unlike US Olive Drab. Heck, the model 21 at the USAF Museum in Dayton Ohio is a light brown/ khaki color.
Joe
Yes, and the interior of the USAF Museum’s Marauder is Interior Green, which from my research on B-26s shows was way off base.
And just like the MAPS original B-26 which has the interior slathered in Interior Green, when they were in NMF as it shows in this photo of flak damage on a mission to Kiska in 1942:
http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=BC6A54C6-1DD8-B71C-07F587380CF50D7C http://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/photogallery/akr/park/aleu/BC6AE8AE-1DD8-B71C-07C796332FECF7FB/BC6AE8AE-1DD8-B71C-07C796332FECF7FB.jpg A better link, I hope. The photo shows the original ALCOA ink stamping on the aluminum sheeting on the interior. And Stik, notice the red paint on the gear door showing the propeller safety zone as you did on your B-26B.
Great photo there… I guess my main point is not to rely on museum aircraft for accurate historical reference. Unless it is somewher like the Smithsonian where aircraft are either preserved “as is” when they were received such as Flak Bait or X-1 Glamorous Glennis, or are meticulously restored back to original colors as closely as possible. I have noticed that the USAF Museum does not always adhere to those standards. It will often restore an aircraft into the guise of another.
The AF has changed to a preservation mode from a “restoration” mode as seen with their newest examples like the SR-71 where the cockpit shows all the real world use scrapes and scratches in the original paint. The B-24D has the cockpit sprayed in interior green but then they stopped as the Bombay and beyond is in original yellow zinc chromate.
And Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Wow, what a cool subject. I’ve got plans for my first Japanese plane coming up later this year and this, and forgive the pun on Christmas day, gets me into the spirit 
Merry Christmas guys! Raymond
Lawdog, if what you show in your photo above is a good representation of the Tamiya paint, then it is probably in the ballpark, maybe even a metameric match.
I think you will find that model paint manufacturers have made plenty of mistakes over the years, so I do not assume that just because a company is Japanese it will get everything that relates to Japanese WWII airplanes, including the shapes, correct.
Tamiya XF-76 is not likely to be a perfect match for all lighting conditions and angles (a very high standard), and that is because it is not made of the same materials as the real paint was.
The words ame iro (you can write them separately like this if you like; note the spelling – no “h”), mean “candy color”. This particular ame (飴) is a generic word for sweets. Therefore, it has a somewhat broad meaning, as seen by the various interpretations Japanese people have for it. If you were to plug that kanji into a Google search, you’d get a huge variety of sweets.
I agree with you lawdog114, that perhaps no one can definitively say what color the Model 21 was, because there is no one color. There may not even be just one paint. The perceived colors of a given surface change as lighting changes. Just watch what happens to the color of your car or a mountain over a period of hours as the sun travels through the sky. This is a concept lost on many modellers due to lack of art classes in schools. The engineer in us tells us that the paint has not changed during the day or night, so therefore it can be only one color. However, that is only true for one set of lighting conditions and angles. The challenge for the modeller is not to think like an engineer or scientist, but to think like an artist in painting models.
Rick and Stikpusher, as much as I love the Martin B-26, this thread is not about it. Can I ask for your cooperation?
Thank you and merry Christmas.
Spruesome, threads here often meander in the manner of this one. My point was not use musuem aircraft as hard fast references, not to hijack and change it to a discussion of the B-26. It is still about the color of the Zero. The USAF Museum Zero was brought up as an example, so I brought up a cautionary point using a known reference, their B-26. Rick re inforced the point, with photogrphic links, as often occurs here. I do believe that this is a group open discussion and where all members are welcome to contribute with input directly on topic or related in some manner. That is the way that this forum has been working over the years.
As far as thinking like an artist when painting models that is a very slippery slope… depicting a gray Zero in the sunrise or sunset hours when the suns rays are refracted by the atmosphere and that peculiar red orange lighitng occurs could lead to some interesting looking aircaft
Nothing against Joe, he does beautiful work with his aircraft builds, but I don’t think the Tamiya paint can be properly assessed as the piece he is showing has already been weathered, plus all the other peripherals like lighting, different monitors etc.
I find XF-76 straight from the bottle is decidedly more green than anything, For kicks, I pulled a trio of Tamiya images and pasted them on the Zero Joe had linked earlier. It was already said not to judge paint by the cap colour, but why is Joe’s more ‘caramel’ in tone?
Sprucesome- any opinion on Nick Millman’s writing on Zero colours? He runs the blog Aviation of Japan, and here is a sample of one of his entries. Scroll down about two thirds for interesting read on Zero Paint Degradation Schematic Models:
http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011_12_01_archive.html
regards,
Jack
(Stikpusher, the latest issue of FSM has exactly that slippery slope in the form of new Vallejo paints for simulating lighting on particular panels of a tank model. I don’t advocate going to that extreme to paint a model.)
Thanks for your comments on XF-76, jgeratic. Tamiya’s own print media portray their XF-76 as being very green, virtually devoid of any sort of honey or amber color, warmth, etc. If XF-76 is even within the range of perceived colors projected by the paint of the real planes, it is at the extreme green end of that range. I am trying to give Tamiya the benefit of the doubt here. Even if I used acrylic, I would not choose XF-76 for the exterior of a Model 21 Zero.
I read that XF-76 is matt, which would be another reason it does not match. The paint on the pre-July 1943 Model 21 is said to be somewhat glossy, and indeed the very same naval officer said it was somewhat glossy as of February 1942 (in a report, the title of which is abbreviated to “KuuGiHou 0266”).
It is also not a match in that one could not paint a panel repair on a real Model 21 with Tamiya XF-76 and expect it to blend perfectly with the factory-applied paint, simply because it is a different sort of material. (I say this with 40 years of automotive background, knowing how difficult it is to repaint part but not all of a car body. If I were to respray a car door with Tamiya or Model Master or Vallejo model paint, I could not hope for it to match the adjacent factory finish.) I could get close, however, for the purposes of some lighting and angles. This is what modelling must settle for.
(Years ago, I published my own partial rebuttal to Mr. Lansdale’s early article on the colors of the Zero, seeing that his article was already starting to cause confusion in the modelling world. It appeared in an Asahi Journal around 1999, and is titled “When Light Gray-Green Isn’t”. Nick Millman was a subscriber at the time. Some of what Nick has said on the subject since then is very similar to what I wrote but it is not credited to me. Nor does Nick tend to credit the Japanese researchers on whom he sometimes relies for his writings on this and other topics, such as Mr. Owaki, Mr. Nohara, Mr. Kurosu, “Mr. Summer” and others. It would be a pleasure to see the Japanese researchers get their due, for a change, in the writings of Westerners.)
I saw Nick’s aging progression a couple of years ago. While I think he has the right general idea, I do not think he has taken the oxidation process far enough toward a pale, neutral gray. We know from the color photos of a wrecked Zero on Munda taken maybe mid-1944 (one or more of which is from the Jeff Ethell collection) that the paint on that particular wreck has a thick layer of whitish oxidation at the top. It represents maybe 12-16 months under very intense sun.
Nick apparently had a particular relic in mind when he wrote, “…protected from light and exposure for many years…”. That must refer to underside pieces, because certainly the upper surfaces of a plane are not “protected from light and exposure”. On the contrary, any paint underneath the oxidation layer of that Zero wreck on Munda had by the time of the photograph been heated by the sun a great deal, day after day, and possibly irreparably damaged by it. Even without that sort of repeated baking, some paints and other materials yellow and brown with age. Is this news?
The problem with Nick’s chips or anyone else’s, and the pseudo-science revolving around relics, the color measurements, the use of Japanese color words, and all of the other pencil sharpening to find The One True Color, is that there is not just one true color. There is a range of colors we would see from the one paint, which I believe makes obsessing over any one of them unproductive.
