Color and Scale

The "scale color" idea does make a lot of sense but it is ultimately up to the modeler on what they want.  Some think that Gunship Gray is too dark so they lighten it with white.  I don't lighten the base color at all.  I may paint certain panels on an aircraft a lighter shade just to break up a monochromatic scheme seen on an F-15E.  If someone wants to paint an F-16 Candy Apple Red they can because they may have been wearing red sunglasses from 75 meters away and the plane looked red when the saw it at an air show. 

It is up to you.  If you are happy with the result, then it was the right shade of color.

The only thing I use scale effect on is model ships, for this reason.  The "scale" distance from which you view a model depends on the size/scale of the model. It is my opinion that we view models from something like the scale, in feet. I.e, we view a 1:48 scale airplane from something like about 48 to 50 scale feet.

I worked in electro optics and am thoroughly familiar with the effect of vision through the atmosphere (I even have a copy of Middleton's book by that name).  If the atmosphere were so foggy that we had substantial greying of the colors at 50 feet, we'd also see softening of edges.  But no one advocates softening detail.

With ships, that is different.  We would be viewing many ships from 300 to 700 scale feet.  At that distance it does not take much haze to soften colors.

HOWEVER-  There is another effect due to environment that IS real.  Paint exposed to air (oxygen in air) and sunlight (contains UV) do chalk, especially older paint pre-1980s.  I often overspray the top surfaces of models with either a light grey paint or a whitened version of the finish color.  This is a very fine airbrushed coat to simulate oxidation and UV bleaching. It also takes gloss off decals and reduces their color saturation.

So in summary, I DO soften paint colors, but not for scale effect but for environmental damage.  Except for ships- there I do use less saturated colors even before chalking paint.

If you want to simulate atmospheric effects, including the effects of weathering on paint, Don is spot-on. "Scale color" is a misnomer—if you scale down a color, it's black.

So you have to decide what atmosphere you wish to portray. A panzer at fifty feet on a dark, snowy winter's day is dark gray unless camouflaged—in which case it's not very visible at all.

And frankly, unless you are building a diorama, or displaying the model on a background, I think it's silly to worry about it. You are not looking at the scale aircraft on an apron, on a cloudy, foggy day in England. You are looking at it on your display shelf. Bottom line, if you like the way it looks, it looks right, and is right.

I honestly dont know the exact psychology or science of it, but for my money its true.  When I look at models which are 100% the correct FS or whatever, they just don't look "right" to my naked eye, but those who's color has been compensated (or whatever you want to call it) do.

That's been my, admittedly anecdotal, observation anyway.  Last few kits I've done have had some amount of white added to the colors and/or a white or buff filter applied and I'm much happier with the result.

Triarius

If you want to simulate atmospheric effects, including the effects of weathering on paint, Don is spot-on. "Scale color" is a misnomer—if you scale down a color, it's black.

So you have to decide what atmosphere you wish to portray. A panzer at fifty feet on a dark, snowy winter's day is dark gray unless camouflaged—in which case it's not very visible at all.

And frankly, unless you are building a diorama, or displaying the model on a background, I think it's silly to worry about it. You are not looking at the scale aircraft on an apron, on a cloudy, foggy day in England. You are looking at it on your display shelf. Bottom line, if you like the way it looks, it looks right, and is right.

Rather than black, it turns a medium to light grey.  On a somewhat hazy day, look at the sky just barely above the horizon.  You need a fairly flat piece of landscape to do this. However, this near-horizon sky is what colors of every object will appear like if they are at a distance at or beyond the stated visibility.

JamesDean

I honestly dont know the exact psychology or science of it, but for my money its true.  When I look at models which are 100% the correct FS or whatever, they just don't look "right" to my naked eye, but those who's color has been compensated (or whatever you want to call it) do.

That's been my, admittedly anecdotal, observation anyway.  Last few kits I've done have had some amount of white added to the colors and/or a white or buff filter applied and I'm much happier with the result.

I believe that is due to bleaching effects, not distance.  Look at airplanes in  indoor museums that have been restored with new paint.  They look just like models painted with the stock color and not weathered in any way.

Don, you misunderstood, I think. I wasn't talking about distance making a color black. I was talking about scaling the pigment down, which is really what "scale color" should mean, grammatically speaking. Shrink down a pigment to scale size, and it gets black to the naked eye—or even under an optical microscope, if you shrink it enough. That's why I don't like the term. It should be "atmospheric color" or "distance color" or "scale distance color."

But I also object to the notion that we should consider scale models to look as the real thing at a distance (except in a diorama, where it is needed). I want my models to look as close to the real thing, up close and personal, as possible. Otherwise, as you say, why add detail? The same folks who criticize a model for not having "scale colors" also keep panel lines, sometimes even going to great lengths to get them and the panels just right—all of which vanishes at scale distance.

Why do Jon Vojtech's models win prizes, when all that incredible detail wouldn't be visible at a scale distance? (Rhetorical question!)

I guess I've just heard it used as a critical nit-pick too often. Same with "that's not the right color for olive drab" or any other color. I used to work in the paint industry, and one of my tasks was approving batches of paint for color match. I know how much variation can occur between batches of a paint color before it even leaves the plant. And after that, it's up for grabs.

Okay, I'm ranting. Time to go get some more styrene and a cup of coffee…

BTW: Coffee makes a great color wash…Don't ask how I found out…

Guess a quick experiment would be to compare how a museum aircraft looked inside - where you're probably viewing it very closely, to one situated outside where you could look at it from 48 meters.

Well, if Brett Green is correct, and "realism" is the ideal, then one should lighten colors slightly to get them right at a meter. Not sure where that leaves one building for a contest where folks might be looking at things from an inch or two. For what it's worth the only gent that I know who displays kits in competition says he exaggerates some of the fine color work to make sure the judges notice it. But I think that if what Green argues has any truth it might be worth considering. My crimes against modeling are spread out across a large room. If a little lighter is better when viewing from a few feet, then perhaps it would make my humble creations likewise a little better. At this stage I look at everything I do as an experiment - so this is just one more variable to play with. I suppose matters like this are a good reason to get involved with some kind of group. The trouble with the best book, or podcast, or photo is that none of them display real models. (Actually one project I've thought up is to do a model of a model. I'm thinking a ship here. Be inspired by some of those astounding mega-models you see in museums where the vessel is spanking bright and untouched by human hands or the forces of nature. Be fun I think.) 

Eric 

Triarius

Don, you misunderstood, I think. I wasn't talking about distance making a color black. I was talking about scaling the pigment down, which is really what "scale color" should mean, grammatically speaking. Shrink down a pigment to scale size, and it gets black to the naked eye—or even under an optical microscope, if you shrink it enough. That's why I don't like the term. It should be "atmospheric color" or "distance color" or "scale distance color."

But I also object to the notion that we should consider scale models to look as the real thing at a distance (except in a diorama, where it is needed). I want my models to look as close to the real thing, up close and personal, as possible. Otherwise, as you say, why add detail? The same folks who criticize a model for not having "scale colors" also keep panel lines, sometimes even going to great lengths to get them and the panels just right—all of which vanishes at scale distance.

Why do Jon Vojtech's models win prizes, when all that incredible detail wouldn't be visible at a scale distance? (Rhetorical question!)

I guess I've just heard it used as a critical nit-pick too often. Same with "that's not the right color for olive drab" or any other color. I used to work in the paint industry, and one of my tasks was approving batches of paint for color match. I know how much variation can occur between batches of a paint color before it even leaves the plant. And after that, it's up for grabs.

Okay, I'm ranting. Time to go get some more styrene and a cup of coffee…

BTW: Coffee makes a great color wash…Don't ask how I found out…

I did misunderstand.  In general I agree with much of what you wrote, though reducing saturation to zero results in grey, not black because saturation and lightness are independent aspects of color.

I have talked to several navy types who mentioned getting batches of paint that had the same color number an specs and it looked different.

And, once a plane or any object that sits outside very much is first rolled out into atmosphere and sunlight it will change color.  Exactly HOW it will change color depends on latitude and weather.  The same paint on two different planes sent to different theatres will soon look completely different.

BTW comment. I have used tea for wash, and for weathering wood.

I agree with the points made about scale colour but wish to add the most critical part missing from the discussion is the relationship between the opto mechanics of the eye, light energy and perception.  This may sound like its getting a bit heavy but bear with me.

Warning; potentially boring stuff to follow.

The eye is very much like a camera: the lens is, well, the lens; the pupil is the aperture; the retina is the film, or in digital cameras the light sensitive array; the shape of the eyeball gives us our focal length and our light sensitive rod and cone nerves of the retina are the light sensitve chemical grains of film or the pixels of a digital camera.  We don't have a shutter that works to limit exposure time, we just have what's more like pulses of nerve data.

Light is a form of radiated energy. The important thing is that the nerves in the retina are excited by the energy in light.  The more light the more nerve excitement and so we percieve light as brighter.  Thats why too much excitement from a bright light hurts, it over excites the nerves. (Reminds me of my wedding night - but that's another story.)

The lens acts like a funnel, collecting light energy and focusing it on the nerves in the retina. Unlike a camera, we can't swap out different lenses for different situations. We are stuck with the same maximum light collecting surface area regardless of what we are looking at.

Now imagine the amount of light energy reflected from a chess board.  A 1/8th scale chess board would fill just one square of the original and only ever be reflecting 1/64th the light energy of the original.  Even if the original is eight times further away the scale chess board is still only reflecting 1/64th the light energy of the original for our eyes to operate with. (This effect is not compensated for by the inverse square law of light radiation because that law is only applicable to polarised light radiating undisturbed in all directions from an active light source. A colour reflecting surface has none of those things.) Less light is percieved as darker colour.  There are other influencing factors such as:

 - Our lens being a 1/64th smaller target at that distance.

 - The way light scatters from interacting with the pigment grains in the original's surface compared to how it should interact with scale pigment grains.

 - The atmospheric effects mentioned by other writers.

 - The uneven distribution of the seperate brightness and colour sensitive nerves across our retina affects how we percieve the same colour close up or far away. (This gets into a whole new field of scale colour saturation.)

All these things though do not change the fact that the scale model is reflecting less light energy in the first place for our eye to work with. Our eyes see that lesser light energy as darker colour that can be crudely compensated for by bumping up the reflected light energy from the model with a lighter shade.

One big difference between our eyes and a camera is that our eyes, except for the pupil and maybe squinting, cannot change the varables that a camera can to adjust an image. What our eyes do have is a brain to interpret physical light energy and form a perception.  This is where much of the adjustment happens on a concious and subconcious level so ultimately the "what looks right" philosophy is correct.  I have gone to boring lenghts here though to show that there is in fact valid physical and anotomical basis to the concept of scale colour. 

"All these things though do not change the fact that the scale model is reflecting less light energy in the first place for our eye to work with. Our eyes see that lesser light energy as darker colour that can be crudely compensated for by bumping up the reflected light energy from the model with a lighter shade."

What he said. :)

I also like to ligthen my colors a bit, but more for weathering and make details pop rather than for scaled effect. The problem is, as Triarius has pointed out, what distance are you aiming for? Your model can be viewed from 5 iniches to 2-3 feet away, that's a large variance when scaled up from 1/48 or 1/72?  Again, we put in all that details and panel lines that clearly would not be visible after a certain distance.  Utlimately, we do it just because it looks 'good'.