I’ve been trying to get a decent match of French buff/gold for my Charles Martel build.
I was hoping to create a poll but don’t see how to do it here - please give me a hand and cast your vote the old fassion way. I do have a preference and depending how this goes it might be light gray!
Thanks in advance!
First picture is for context:
Choices are from left to right -
A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
None of the above!
I believe C is the closest to the buff of late 19th, early 20th century.
I like B the most.
Colourcoats makes a color called Buff, which I used on my Imperial German Navy cruiser.
Bill
Missileman2000 - I agreed with your choice of C: I even did a first pass using that color
But after seeing it in place, I started to feel Bill’s choice: B, might be better as it is whiter/lighter. I’m still on the fence between the two. I had originaly used D: and that was way too orange, wish I had taken pictures though.
Please weigh in folks! I need a tie breaker!
C looks about right!
The colour of C looks good but it should probably be toned down a bit with some white to lighten it a bit in scale.
Hi!
I do believe a color choice between Cand D would be perfect. The others are either too light or too bright!
I agree. I’d try “C”, but tone it down with a bit of grey to reduce the intensity.
Good point. Late 20th and 21 century paints seem to be more saturated than paints frm past. To me a good buff is not real high saturation. Do not be reluctent to mix paint- just go slow and try paint on scrap for every mix.
Id vote for C and then runner up B
but the idea of adding a little bit of gray sounds like a good one just to “scale it down”
I’m on board with you and rcboater, try C with the gray to tone it down.
See what I did there, “on board”?
I finally found a shade that doesn’t leave me feeling like I’m making a huge mistake.
Thank you all for your input on this.
That looks bang on. More to the brown than the orange.
Thanks!
I didn’t have that uneasy feeling after using it, so I was thinking I was on the right track…
I’ve had a real Goldilocks experience with this buff color. It still may be a tad too dark but I’m all in now. One thing I did learn from all this: I can indeed soak resin printed parts in acetone without any obvious ill effects!
Folks,
I am getting the impression that the responses here were all assuming that US Navy buff = German navy buff = RN (colourcoats) buff = French 1895 buff.
Do we have any solid reason to be assuming that all the navies would use the same color palette, even if the same color name was used?
Rick
Not sure anybody was assuming that. The reality is that almost any colour used could be “right” as long as it met the definition of “buff”. The shade of course would vary by country but also by age, maintenance level, theater of operation (weather conditions) and even source of the original paint within the same country supply chain so to say any one colour is correct is ambitious. Sort of the same as saying something is “olive drab” which of course covers an almost endless number of varying shades and tones.
That is an excellent point and I did do a decent amount of internet searching. Unfortunately buff French pre dreadnoughts came and went before color photography leaving us with paintings, pigments fade and the materials they are used on can darken and get grimy with age. That said there are some great looking colorized photos many of us have no doubt seen:
Not to dissimilar to my choice a tad lighter and more orange for sure
But I have no idea if the colorized image is 100% on target.
We do have US buff to compair to:
And again my choice is close…
All in all I feel better about my latest choice than my earlier ones.
And this color really ties the room together…
Yep. Short of a time machine there is no way to know what the actual colour was as any references are already artificial and possibly way off base.
