I am new to building plastic models and have a really basic queston about paint and detail guidelines. As a learning curve project I purchased a model aircfaft from Trumpeter. Most of the instructions seem straight forward but I did have a question about the paint and detail guide material. I understand the paint suggestion and decal information given, but there are a lot of numbers on the guide which I don’t understand. Can someone tell me how to interpret tehse numbers?
Do you have a pic of the instructions
They probably refer to manufacturer numbers like Gunze,Revell,and so forth.We would need to see to know for sure
Trumpeter’s paint codes, like most Asian manufacturers, refer to Gunze Sangyo (aka GSI Creos) paints. There are two types, acrylic (Aqueous Hobby Color) denoted by “H” followed by a number in a white box, and Mr Color (lacquer based) denoted by a white number in a black box.
Hello!
Let’s look at an example like this:
In this case numbers in double boxes with H in front of them are paint colours by Gunze. Numbers with no letter in front of them are individual decals to additionally clarify things. Sometimes a decal is so tiny it’s hard to see on the instruction sheet - then it looks like a number is “pointing to nothing” - but there’s a tiny decal there.
Hope it helps, good luck with your build and have a nice day
Paweł
Pawel,
Thank you for the feedback. I completely missed making the connection between the numbers with no letters and the decals. You are right it just ooked like they were pointing to nothig on the model.
Dan51
Just a word of caution…do not trust ANY model manufacturer for the color call outs or markings. They are usually way off what the actual color or markings were in real life. I make it a habit to check other sources to verify the accuracy. I specially don’t trust Trumpeter cause this is not the first time I have caught mistakes.
As a very recent example, Trumpeter has bogus 35th TFW, 614th TFS SEA decal markings for the 1/48 F100F Hun from Phan Rang air base in Vietnam. The serial # was never issued to the F variant.
Edit: I just checked the second markings in the sheet for a NMF one and the serial number range is for the D variant so double mistake on the same sheet.
Phil_H,
Thanks for the help on decoding the paint color headings. I did not realize one refered to acrylic and the other to lacquer.
Dan51
Your welcome,no worries
I can state from personal experience that Trumpeter paint instructions are not reliable.
I reccomend doing the research to find out the actual color name/ number.Its so easy to do that now.
I agree with GM fully. For a mainstream kit manufacturer, Trumpeter’s painting instructions are the worst. Like he said, do your research.
Airfix’s take on the colours for the day fighter colours, keyed to Humbrol colours
https://www.sunwardhobbies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/p-35314-a05128-layout-a.jpg
There are many different paint conversion charts & also Vallejo, AK, Hataka, even Tamiya and others do “RAF Colours Day Fighter” sets which will at least give you an idea of the colours are needed.