Painting the Colombo Express

Hi ;

 I always use Model master Rust for ship bottoms . Clean but not to bright . Container colors ?  Hanjin and Maersk , Medium  Bright Blue . Hanjin , light ( almost white ) grey . There are many others from brick to beret green and others . Conti Lines are a medium dark Blue . The containers from Matson are varied .

 I think if you can Google Shipping Containers - Colors you might hit paydirt . You do have trains there right ? Look for the containers on the ubiquitus well cars ( yellow , Usually ) there you will see lots . Any entry port in your area should serve as a good research area on this .

 Remember this though . Many have Blue Black or Red lettering on the sides . Some have White too .That on a Blue background. Pacer -Stacktrain containers are Blue Angel Blue with Pacer in Red and Stacktrain in white . Just recently saw a Hanjin Container in Tan with Blue lettering too !

I used Model Master British Crimson for the red, forget what I used for the green.

I not only found the color of other firms containers on line, I copied the logo from the images and used them to make inkjet decals, since the kit supplied decals for only one line.

Also, modern anti-fouling paints are no longer red from their chemical compositions.  The anti-fould stuff is mostly clear.  So, the modern colors are deceptive, they can be quite bright colors--reds, green, blue, etc.

The problem being that those do not "look" right on models, even if prototypical.

You could, in fact, use just the one red; just add black (or charcoal gray) to the hull collor and pale gray to the upper works red (you have to use caution tinting with white lest you get a pink).

The green decks run from a medium green to a slightly darker moss green.

For the containers, I'd do a Google Image serach--they are in all sorts of colors, and new one seem to crop up all the time.  Yellows, reds, blues, oragnges--the gamut.

For the black, it's best to use a very dark gray. Testors has a color called NATO Black that's my current favorite.

I sort of disagree with Pawel. The two oxide colors are somewhat different, usually. I use anything from brown to red-brown on the hull. Kind of like what used to be called "Boxcar Red". Tamiya makes a color called Dull Red. I've also used Rustoleum Red Oxide Primer.

For the deck, I see it as a little more orange. There's a color that Ace Hardware sells that is their inhouse version of Rustoleum. It's worthless as a primer, but it does look the part.

For container colors, just look at the internet. Plenty of ideas there.

I've seen some really nice builds of that model, including sharp looking photoetch.

RODC - you didn't specify what paints you CAN get where you live. But in the end I would'n stick to hard to any numbers, just match the colours to what you can see around you and to the reference you can find on the net. The hull red and the deck red are essentially red oxide primer - dull red-brown colour I'm sure you are familiar with. You could make the hull red a little bit more red, and the dek red a little more brown to show the effects of fading and other weathering. That green would probably be signal green, maybe a little faded, it would be best to research it on the internet. As for the containers - the decals you are going to get will spell out the shipping company names you could look up on the net, but I would be surprised if you didn't know any of them or didn't see any of them in your area, at least from time to time. Here you can match the colours to what you see.

Hope it helps - please be sure to post the pictures of your build, good luck with it and have a nice day

Paweł