Just purchased the Revell 1:72 F6 F5 Hellcat. I was going through the color chart and I am having trouble making out the colors. There are several I have never heard of before. I checked the Testors and Tamiya websites with no luck. I am probably doing my searches wrong.
My first question is: If the color has the work Matt in it, that means it is a flat right? I guess it would be since it is a military plane. But just checking.
My second: Is there a website that I can just go and buy theses unique colors?
I have added the colors below. Can anyone tell me what color(s) I can use in case these are not easily available.
In my opinion, you are going about this the hard way.
You see, Revell Germany kits tend to reference Revell paint colors and since they do not have the variety like Testors, they tend to complicate things by having you mix a special brew from their limited selection.
What I normally do is ignore the strange mixes, and simply buy the correct color from someone like Testors, already made.
With the F6F-5, you have three possible color combinations, depending on which carrier squadron you are seeking to represent, ranging from dark sea blue all over to the three-toned paint job.
For some examples, you can go to this link and click on the various Hellcat reviews, and pick the one that suits you best:
Here’s the simplest way to get the correct color. Use this chart here http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/colorcharts.asp . First, click on the country that the plane is flying for, USA, UK, etc… That will give you a list of all Federal Standard paint colors. Then, use the paint list from the model kit to kind the correct FS number and look across to find model paint manufacturer’s paint equivalent. And you can click on the FS number and see a color sample.
For instance, using the UK color reference, earth brown (used between 1919 and 1938) is FS:30118. Humbrol has an exact match with Hu:142. Since the chart doesn’t show another manufacturer, a simple web search should produce an equivalent between humbrol and tamiya or polly scale. Sea geen is FS:34092 or Tamiya XF-27.
Once you get a list of the FS numbers, I believe PollyScale lists a bunch of their colors by the FS equivalent.
That’s a really nice chart, Fred, but I think some of his confusion may be from Revell’s wierd mixing instructions.
I mean why is he asking for colors like dust grey, Nato-olive, and earth brown, and just plain green, when they do not fit the USN schemes?
Also, to answer his other question, yes matt equals flat, but don’t let that bother you.
I normally just buy the base color, however it comes, and then finish the model after decalling with the appropriate clear-coat. I often have a mix of flats, glosses and semi-gloss textures in my paint scheme before the final coat of clear flat or semi-gloss.
Tom [C):-)]
P.S. Edit:
Also, to use Testors website, for instance, you have to chop in the simple one-word for the base color (like “blue”) in their “quicksearch” block, and then scan the list on the page. Otherwise, it will turn up with “0” results if you use more then the single word.
Well, based on the colors he’s looking for, I’m guessing this a RAF (or RAAF or some UK dealie) bird. And they do list earth brown and sea green under the UK colors. I think revell was listing colors that they produce that are close to the FS equivalents.
Just keep in mind that the hellcat flew for other countries than just the US.
Yes they do list “Earth”, but as an RAF, not an “FAA colour”, Fred, and I would not think you woud paint a Hellcat in “RAF Colours” when they served in the Fleet Air Arm, would you?
Tom, I think you’re overcomplicating the point at hand. If the bird he’s building is calling for those colors, it’s not a US bird and definitely not USN. US used tricolor white/ light blue/ blue, two tone light blue/ blue and overall gloss dark sea blue. It could be FAA, Australian, canadian, etc. - not really the point.
The directions are calling for oddball, non-US colors. The ipms stockholm page shows the color used by all those countries. The ones in the kit happen to match colors used by the UK. I didn’t write the paint callout for the kit, nor did I write the reference guide for IPMS page. I just looked stuff up.
And for what it’s worth, the FAA used f6f-3s (hellcat mk I) with a grey/green camo pattern and roundels, the -5 (mk II) had a similar camo pattern.
I’m quite familiar with this pesky bird as it ate up 2 months of my life /forums/771996/ShowPost.aspx [8D]
Another option might be to type into your google search bar “F6F-5 or Hellcat + FAA” or variations thereof. This may bring up some data concerning paint colours in use then for this a/c.
For the most part, I believe the FAA used the same colors, color designations and schemes as the RAF. Not unlike the later agreement between the British and Americans that resulted in the ANA system of color coding.
Another thing is that you really can’t trust most kit manufacturers color schemes shown on the instructions. Having built plastic models for 50+ years (and remembering the days when all British a/c were "Brown, Dark Green and Light Blue or Green, All German a/c were “Dark Green, Light Green and Light Blue” and all American a/c were either “OD and Light Grey” or overall “Dark Blue”), I believe I can say that their instructions have improved somewhat. I don’t usually build a model using the color scheme in the instructions any more. About the only time I do is when A. I can confirm the scheme w/outside sources or B. I really, really like the scheme (which is rare). Plus the fact that a lot of times, the colors on the included decals are quite often wrong (ignoring the fact that most of those decals aren’t worth using even if the colors are correct)
And just because the box top shows a USN F6F doesn’t mean it can’t be built as an FAA Hellcat II. Revell and other Mfgs often include painting instructions and decals for than one aircraft in their kits. You need to do independent research to determine if what they show is correct and to see what differences there are between the American and British versions are. (The FAA version of the F4U w/the clipped wing tips come to mind)
Actually, I see my method of picking the review and the colors that guy used as easier then interpreting a matrixed FS color chart, but that is a nice chart you found there, Fred, and I have made a note of it for my future information.
[#ditto]
Believe it or not, this occured to me not long long after I posted the box picture, Quincy, when I went back to my display room at lunch and took a longer look at my old 1/48 scale Monogram kit I built and finished in FAA colors and markings.
Now as far as color schemes, Quincy, they are definately different for the carrier-based aircraft vs. the ground-based aircraft, as well as the Pacific vs. Atlantic theater, although they called the colors by the same handle for both the RAF and the FAA, and if you refer to the chart Fred is sharing with us, the differences are well-defined, the FAA colors being clearly noted. The differences even carry so far as to have distinctly different markings even for RAF aircraft for UK based, vs, North African, vs. the Burmese jungle.
I have in my display the finished FAA Hellcat in it’s subdued Atlantic colors), as well as just finishing both a HobbyCraft Pacific Corsair (it comes with nice special wing-tips for clipping) in dark sea-blue all over, per an actual photograph; and their Parific Theater Seafire IX in the more subdued grey’s and greens, as well as Arii’s Pacific Theater Spitfire Mk VIII.
Now here is the real, more obvious question ,guys, is “painklr” gonna come back out of woodwork and tell us what his objective here is, or is he gonna just stay back and watch us “experts” beat on each other and thrash this subject to death with our knowledge of model-building micro-minatuae? [:-^]
The standard colours in use by the FAA at that time were Ex Dk Sea Grey/Dk Slate Grey over Duck Egg Green (not to be confused with Sky Type ‘S’). This is confirmed on the FAA archive site, & also in Hasegawa’s instructions in their 1/48 kit of the Mk1 FAA. It would follow that the Mk2 was in the same scheme, when used in the Far East - possibly even delivered in all-over Dk Sea Blue.
For what it’s worth, the FS equivs would be close to these: 36118/34096/35622
This is essentially what I was trying to say, especially in reference to Revell-Germany’s instruction sheets which are the worst about giving you good color references, since they only tell to mix-and-match their own stuff regardless of what the origional color was, even if it was German WWII RLM colors.
Here’s my favorite FAA subject, which I am finishing for the FAA group build from the HobbyCraft kit:
In this case, it looks like late in the war, for the Pacific Theater use, they simply applied British markings to the standard USN overall dark sea blue. The tough part is getting the detail of the contrasting cowling fin seperations dark with the bright yellow cowling itself.
As far as Duck Egg Green, the RAF Interior Green (which is available from ModelMaster’s) is actually a close match for this color, as DEG is what the Trumpeter instruction booklet actually calls out for the interior color for their HobbyCraft 1/24th Spirfire kit I have, since MM didn’t make the RAF Interior Green at the time of it’s printing.
For one of my kits, before MM came out with RAF Int. Green, I used Russian Underside Blue with good results.
Yep, that’s the site Tom - great site. Spent quite a bit of time trawling through it the other day, though I think all I’ve done is just add another list of kits to the “to do” pile.[sigh]
