New paint mixing internet tool

Nice!!

Thanks

Werry inter-ves-tink ;

 boot das it has der RLM kolorn korrrect? HA!   I tink not!

Seriously great find, as it will give us a good "best guess" as we try to create the colors we need / want

The tool is a little tricky but if you put some time in, it is very effective. I've been writing to Golden for over a year about this and I think they're thinking about putting their oar into modeling paints - Vallejo started in the art field so there is precedent. Anyway, this widget is designed for their colors. Everybody's colors have things in common, but Golden paints have a quantified "opacity" rating (going from totally opaque like most earth colors to nearly translucent) and their results will take this into consideration. But if a different brand had more or less coverage (opacity) you would get a different color. But it does get one in the right direction. What's startling is how a very small change in ratios can alter a color and how just a little of that third color is needed to make a significantly different hue. Many will never bother, but I think it's great fun. I also liked finger painting.

I played with it for a little while,,,,,,,,and then gave up on it

the reason was simple

anyone know how many drops of any color to start with to be working in the right ball park to a modeling color,,,,,say,,,,Haze Gray for a ship?

if you do, then you can start with a close color and fine tune it with that tool

BUT

if you can guess the starting point that close, and are able to create a "very close Haze Gray chip" on your monitor,,,,,,,you are already good enough to have it done beforehand with actual paint and a Chip from a Paint Guide

no matter how close I could possible get it,,,,,,it still sits on the monitor, telling me that I need 14 drops of Golden paint one, and 12 of this, 7 of that,,,,,,,and there is no "Golden to model paint" drop converter to make paint with

now, if that software was able to be set up for 6 different paint lines, then the results could be made as paints

the other "converter" online works with chips, and paints,,,,so you can decide on a paint to use on a model

Rex

No doubt that each line has a different take on each color. I still like the gadget but lately I've used all water soluble paints like Vallejo Model Color or Golden. Another variable is opacity which artist acrylics quantify (sure wish modeling brands did that) so something like "zinc white" which an almost translucent mixing extender will look the same on a chip as "titanium white" which is the most opaque white I've ever seen. Put the two into a batch and the results are complete different.  And the names of the artist paints usually are a tip off of what kind of pigment is used - if not all that data is available on their web site. These things are made to be mixed which is why Golden is content with forty colors, half of which are "specialty" hues designed for very exacting effects. But Vallejo started in the art market and found modelers a worthy market - I hope Golden does too. Their paints are splendid and could easily be made "user friendly" for the styrene market. (They work great on plastic but you do need to know the mediums.)

Be interesting to know what kind of agent is used by the people at Tamiya and whether they use same kind of pigments. It will get me into the ball park which I find helpful. Perhaps I should have added that grays of all kinds can drive one witless - and that's really what most USN colors are. Tracy White at Shipmodeler knows a lot about this stuff and he said that early in the war USN ships were given buckets of white paste and purple paste and every color was made from those. (Of course the big question is what is "purple" - I'd guess a kind of bluish chromatic black.) There's a very nice $20 widget I bought a while back called Paint Assistant. It won't help you with mixing proportions but but gives you a very good idea of how commercial modeling colors stack up against things like RAL, Federal Standard and each other. Can see it at www.paintassistant.com.