Italeri acrylics accuracy issue

I do, I bought three bottles in my massive switch to Acrylics days

all three bottles I bought match up to FS numbers I need for US aircraft, but, none of the three match up to the color they claim to match

the "Insignia Yellow" matches the Lemon Yellow from the yellow wings era, and so on,,,,,,,,the same thing happened with Vallejo, only that was 79 bought/19 useful

I don't have a high opinion of this "highly acclaimed" paint formula,,,,,,,,,,to balance out, I bought over 300 Polly Scale and Aeromaster colors,,,,,,,,and only 3 in total don't match the FS chip (and those are close enough to be Scale Effect)

Rex

what a pain! somebody should alert people not to buy these paints. many of them dont match the actual colors. anyway are you telling me vallejo is also not accurate? i am ordering 48 bottles of their model air range! am i going to face the same problem again?!

Vallejo has severe color accuracy issues as well. Make sure you check before you spray them!

I can't vouch for RLM accuracy, but I have had very good results in FS matched colors from Model Master and Humbrol. Other good brands are Gunze and Xtracolour. Revell is good as well.

I should have mentioned one of the best Acrylics for color matching.

Granted, this is only the US colors, but, LifeColor had a 100% match up to FS 595A (my main era), for the colors I bought so far. (about 50 colors)

The thing I like about LifeColor is that if they don't have a match to a US color, they don't "force it", for example, they don't have a US Insignia Red, but, they accurately tell you that their Red is 31302, which lets you chose for yourself whether that is close enough for you or not.

I wish all paint companies did this.

Rex

Matt12

what a pain! somebody should alert people not to buy these paints. many of them dont match the actual colors. anyway are you telling me vallejo is also not accurate? i am ordering 48 bottles of their model air range! am i going to face the same problem again?!

The color accuracy of Vallejo acrylics is terrible in my opinion.  I should've known better.  I'm stuck with 50 bottles of Vallejo model color and air.

Funny how everybody fawns all about them here and on other model websites... I'll stick with my enamels and acrylics that I know are close enough for government work.

i see all mentors and experts use vallejo model air and recommend it, how can they not be accurate?

a little flaw is always considerable, but in case of italeri paints, its far more than " a little".

however i personally think Model Masters enamels are the best anyone can get. although i have not tested them myself. what i have used so far and can approve the accuracy is Revell, the only thing about revell is that the finish doesnt look good enough for me. it looks dim and not so bright somehow when totally dried.

Matt12

i see all mentors and experts use vallejo model air and recommend it, how can they not be accurate?

Maybe they don't know any better?? Not all their colors are off, just depends on the line. Be careful of Model Master's RLM colors. I know their RLM 76 is right on, but the 70, 71, and late war greens are all mixed up and not right. Their 75 is too dark and too violet, but their 74 is pretty close.

They can have my Humbrol when they pry it out of my cold dead fingers ;-)

stikpusher

They can have my Humbrol when they pry it out of my cold dead fingers ;-)

^+1

What he said.

Matt, the experts are also on the record for claiming that the Klaus IPMS color guide is correct, even though that disagrees with Dana Bell and Major Elliott and the Munsell company.  The truth is that the IPMS guide is very useful for converting foreign colors to FS numbers, but, it isn't correct for the Vietnam era USN aircraft.

As I just said in a pm yesterday to someone, most color "guides" just go by what the paint company printed on the label, they don't actually open a jar of paint and compare dried paint to a color standard.

one of the very few that does open the paint and compare to a standard is www.cybermodeler.com/index.shtml

here is Italeri "Insignia Yellow", their labeling is under my bold FS number at the top, that bold number is what it actually matches

as you can see, they don't match,,,,so, I just went and got another color for Orange Yellow, and kept the Italeri for Lemon Yellow

keep in mind the experts also say that these are the "same color, with different sheen"

I am not trying to "take over" as the expert,,,,,,,I am just saying that I chose to go with the Dana Bell, Major Elliott, Munsell company, Cybermodeler, and Monogram Color Guides group instead of the "repeat what the IPMS guide says on every website" group

Rex

and they just released some new RLM colors for Luftwaffe fans...

Thanks for the heads up Rex

you definitely made it almost clear. after all i see i am not the only one confused with what the paint companies put on the label. actually i am not very satisfied with Revell's finish but i think the accuracy is pretty good. as for the italeri i usually mix the insignia yellow and the guards red to get the RLM 79 myself.  

Thanks again

Matt

And then, there's the whole question of the effects of scale. I know MM describes the effects of scale and the appearance of paint colors on their paint racks. Do many modelers worry about the appearance of a color on scale models vs. full size?

No. Forget scale effect and paint what you think looks right. The only time you need to keep scale effect in mind is when spraying black or white. I always mix my black with gray or brown, and my white with light brown or gray to make an off white. This is for aircraft modeling in 1/48 scale.

Speaking of the paint rack, be aware of the type of lighting. Looking at a color on the paint rack under flourescent lighting in the store, is not how the color will appear under direct or indirect sunlight, or  halogen or incandescent lighting, whatever the lighting is in your work and display areas. And then in addition your base color will be altered by gloss coats, flat coats, washes, etc...

Yeah, what Stik said.

Lighting can vary so much between work areas, your own display area, and some model show, that a Prolific FSM author uses a different color for International Orange than the strict spec color, because his color looks more like the correct color when the model is photographed for display as a photo in print.  He must also figure that the model will be seen more in the photos than in person, and that is most likely true in that case.

I just match colors to the FS book outside on a partly cloudy day,,,,,,,I figure that after that, I will paint the model, and it will just naturally vary under each different light condition it sits in. Which is exactly how it works with 1/1 paint on a car, tank, or aircraft, those are painted and then look different as the light changes around them.

Rex