Color Scale Effect

I've never really paid much attention to it... What about you guys (and dolls!)??? After all, whatever 'authentic' paint I put on first will end up darker with any wash I put on next..!

Yes there is... I have an article on it on my site... Here:

http://www.naplak.com/modeling/tips/scale_color.htm

There is a little experiment you can do to prove it to yourself too... give it a try!

Interesting, but...

Quoted from your website:

If you build a 1/72 scale model airplane, and look at it from one foot, it is as if you were looking at the real plane from seventy-two feet...

This is absolutely right, I'm sure but why then spend hours detailing the inside of the cockpit, the engine, some more placing the tinyest of stencils and spend yet some more hours doing weathering, ultra weathering and all that. At 72 feet above a open canopy, I'm wondering how much detail one would see...

I think it's all about illusion. Modeling is an illusion, giving life to something that should not look that much alive. And in order to do that, we need to accentuate things, such as bringing out details by dry-brushing techniques (and others). Since we are therefore cheating our (and other people's) eyes and brains, I'd think the scale effect is slightly irrelevant...

Something that interest me though, is why you would lighten, say a green color, with white..? Surely, a lighter green should be created with yellow instead. Adding white will only tne down the paint..? If I add 7% white to my red, I'll have a pink Ferrari, that will look nothing like what you could see on a picture, let alone in the real world...?

The reference in that article about "as if" you were looking at it from 72 feet is only in reference to how that affects the appearant color.

If you want the authentic color to look real you'd have to get your eye to within an inch or so of the model... the distance affect is noticable from even just a few feet away.

It all depends on if you want the color to BE correct, or to LOOK correct... and as pointed out, a model is an illusion; we want it to look correct.... the only thing that IS correct is the actual item you are modeling.

Most people I know who do this use white to lighten... tho I would agree that light green (as in your example) would make more sense... but... is that light green lighter because it has white in it? I don't know.

7% would have a very very small affect, and on a 1/20 scale model... the lightening would be 5% or less... so I would not bother with it either.

BUT either way... this is just a matter of personal preference anyway... We build them to enjoy the process and the result. So what looks best to US is what really matters.

P.S.
I added these last 2 posts to the Web Page about this on my site.

Agreed. It is still an interesting subject to talk about!!!

Yes it is... I personally tend to stick with authentic colors... But I know people (mostly professional modelers) who are adament about using scale color... but I guess that's their busines, and it's my hobby!

Take an acft that just came out of the paint barn, park it right next to one that was painted one year ago and look at them from ten feet. Then look at them from a distance of twenty, thirty, forty feet. The color does not change on any one of them. The one with the older paint job will be faded and that is all. That is why I paint my acft models depending on how I want to "age" them.

Please take this the way it is intended. I don't mean to be mean spirited at all. With that said...

Do you think it might be the result of a little *social engineering*? For example, several modelers are at a contest and have done the exact same version of the exact same a/c. The judges get to their table and start comparing. One modeler points to the cowl flaps on his model. The others speak up and say mine is exactly like that. Another points out the detail kit he used in the cockpit. All the others say *ours is just like that*. This goes on for some time with each model turning out to be exactly the same.

Finally, one modeler speaks up and says "Yes, but my rendition has the correct *color scale effect* " because he happened to use a slightly lighter/darker shade of paint...

And since there are no other variables and there are a lot of other models to judge and there are only so many hours in a day...the judges pick a winner.

The model with the *scale color effect*...

Sooo, a new detailing criteria is born...

I know how you feel... sadly, I think this is one some judges already DO take into acount!

I wrote an article about Judging contests... (Accuracy vs. Precision) where I pondered about what judges do and should consider.

I think they should just look at the quality of the modeler's work... and what's wrong with a tie?? Maybe there should be a category for Historically Accurate models...

I had this effect explained to me once a long time ago. I don't know whether on not it's true but it does seem reasonable. Something to do with physics and light reflection. So here's how it works (in theory). If you had 50 gallons of paint and sprayed 2 objects. One of them is an Abrams tank, full size, battle ready, fresh out of the spray booth. The other, an Abrams tank, 1/35 scale, not so battle ready, also fresh out of the spray booth. To the human eye they will "appear" to be a slightly different colour. Something to do with the way light reflects off of larger objects compared to small objects. But if you took a 1 inch square paint chip for each of these two samples, they would (and naturally so because they were the same paint) in fact look the same.
This was the explanation I got. Right or wrong I don't know for sure but once my tanks are dirty.....who'd know anyway.

That's almost it... if you moved the real tank farther away till they "looked" the same size from where you were, THEN the real one would look lighter.

It has to do with how light is scattered in the air, and with how your eyes and brain detect light. That's my wife's area of expertise... "Perception & Congition".

Painters learned how to use the Distance Affect in the 19th century, to make things look farther away in their paintings.

naplak is correct about the reason for the paint appearing lighter, it is the way the light is scattered as it passes through the air. This is the same reason that Green hills look like blue hills from 50km away. This is an extreme example, but it is the same thing. It is called 'Diffraction'. So yes, there is some science to scale effect.

However, my oppinion is that it really only comes into play in a practical way for us modellers when you are talking about a model with different paint colours next to one another. Take any cammo scheme, and look at the aircraft at around 100 feet away, the colours blend into one another. It is only when you stand much closer that the contrast between the colours looks clearer.

On a 1/72 scale model, if you have the two colours straight out of the tins, the contrast between them is often too great. if they were both toned down a little, the contrast would be less and the 'Look' of the model would be closer to the real thing.

I would not advocate lightening up any colour if that was the model's over all colour, after all from one type of light to another (high contrast sunlight to dull overcast) the paint colour will appear different. It is the relative contrast between the colours as they appear next to one another that is the more important thing when it comes to scale effect.

These comments are based on my experiance as an airforce photographer ie someone who has a practical understanding of light, and someone who works around aircraft all day.

As for lightening green paint with yellow verses white, you are after reducing the intensity of the colour, not strictly lightening it. To mix yellow would lighten the green, but the green would still have the same concentration of colour it had before, just lighter. Use white and you produce a less intense version of the green. Defraction causes the colours to appear dull, this is one of the things the eye uses to interpret distance and perspective, that is why some modellers choose to imatate it when producing a little version of the original.

Phil

Thanks for that, Phil. True enough, a duller paint would indeed be the better choice..! I also see the point made about paints out of the tin being too stark. In fact, I often think to myself, particularly on multi-colored schemes, that the camo 'out of the tins' looks too bright. Particularly when a particular paint is compared to another, next to it. A bit of white might indeed help, and I'll give it a try next time. I don't fret about it because I know that this 'brightness' and this too stark difference between the various paints is greatly diminished with washes, which, in a way, tone down the whole thing. Drybrushing with a single colour over the whole multi-coloured camo also helps reducing the sharp differences. Weathering, with dust, mud, stains,... just complete the process of 'blending' various colours into others...

Another option to consider, rather than white, is a little light grey, but it will vary from one colour to another, white might be too harsh for darker greens in particular. I painted a RNZAF A4 Skyhawk which was painted in a wrap around 2 tone green and grey Scheme, I found it worked to add a little dark green to the light one, and a little light green to the darker green. This achieved the result of bringing the tonal value of the greens a little closer together, and reduced the contrast between them.

For real scale color effect all of you can use a simple formula :

1/ 32 : color + 7 % white
1/48 : color + 10
1/72 : color + 15
1/144 : color + 23 %

It works, and it looks real

greetz from Germany Thomas

Thnx for making this topic clearer for me =).

See if you can find SAM Volume 12 # 11, there is a good article
by Ian Huntley on the 'scale colour effect'. Mr Huntley wrote a series
of articles on aircraft colouring over a period of 20 years mostly on late
thirties to ealy fifties aircraft colours