BlackSheepTwoOneFour
Noah
You guys are absolutely right. Although, I will go and check what the colors in the instructions are, I normally don't use them. I normally go and look at pictures of the real thing and if the kit is not real, I will go look at multiple pictures of what other modelers did and get dome ideas from them.
You do know finding WW2 era aircraft will be mostly black and white, right? Very few are restored color photos.
Color wasn't invented until 1943.
But yes like has been said, most of us modeled in the era where the choices originally were not meant to sell paint but to make the model look "real".
The internet maks it so easy now. And added to the comment about not taking restored aircraft colors for granted: they help. Models WIP by others I put in the same category.
I guess I want to say that a lot of beginning modelers ask about what paint to use for a subject.
I respect the question of course and answer- "the accurate color".
There was a source well respected for years. IPMS Stockholm. May well still be.
It converted one paint manufacurers color to another, most valuably referenced a generally correct scale of what the original colors were.
But it rode over the bigger picture for a way to pick paint.
That is now best done by referencing the original color specification, Federal Standard and then RLM and so forth.
Why?
Because both paint makers and the internet increasing can steer a researcher towards a correct chip or match.
The gold standard for me has been Snyder and Short. Those guys found verified swatches of Naval paints, and then formulated paints that match them.
But it's important to look long and hard. Other companies like Tamiya make up a range of paints and assign names that are gneric if beyond IJN.
Just my two bits, but a modeler is well served to lay in rubber, flat black, insignia red, yellow and blue; true white, silver and aluminum and then look for specific colors as each model is on the bench.