I’ve seen this alluded to in other threads, so I wanted to expand on it more here. When we talk about what type of finish we apply, be it the amount of gloss, or the color intensity itself, I think you have to include the scale you are modelling in and how that might affect your presentation. Monogram’s classic Luftwaffe Painting Guide had an excellent discussion of this, and in fact, included some color chips mixed down for 1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 scales, to illustrate their point. So as a starter, I think you have to take the full value of the color in question, and mix it down to the scale in question. This usually involves adding a light gray to the color, which “de-intensifies” it for the smaller scale.
Then you have the amount of sheen. Scott-Snow alluded to this in another thread, where a full-sized gloss aircraft might be better represented with a slightly more semi-gloss finish, in a smaller size. And I have to agree with that. Going full glossy on a smaller model will often-times look toy-like.
So this is just one more thing I am paying more attention to, as I re-start my modeling career. As I visit museums and airshows I will be paying more attention to how my favorite aircraft look from different distances, to better portray them in miniature.
Ah, a subject very close to my heart. Yes it’s been covered in multiple past threads – I recall famously or notoriously a year or so ago regarding the dreaded Panzer Grey…not necessarily faded by adding a light grey 
Of course it’s largely subjective by how much an authentic/accurate manufacturer’s shade e.g olive drab, dunkelgelb etc. should be faded, my own approximate advice is by at least 33% ranging up to 50%.
Gloss/sheen is trickier still, I’d agree with your take on that for planes. Cars are the hardest call, when the original was full gloss – on a model it immediately looks toy-like, but semi-gloss or satin just looks wrong too to my eyes.
“Gloss/sheen is trickier still, I’d agree with your take on that for planes. Cars are the hardest call, when the original was full gloss – on a model it immediately looks toy-like, but semi-gloss or satin just looks wrong too to my eyes.”
That’s really ironic as car modellers spend hours (or days) getting that high-polish finish - and win prizes for it!
Oh for sure we can go down this rabbit hole for days. But suffice it to say, there should be SOME kind of adjustment for a scale miniature of the full size.
Yeah I agree, on color intensity, I think 1/32 aircraft, maybe 20%; 1/48 at 33%, and 1/72 at something close to 50%. So that’s 5:1 in 1/32; 3:1 in 1/48, and close to 1:1 in 1/72. I think that’s pretty close to what the Monogram guide came up with.
On sheen, well that’s very subjective as well. Luckily with military aircraft, the colors are usually somewhat muted to begin with, to one extent or the other, and then after sitting outside for months or years, even more so. One of my pet peeves is the type of finish frequently put on flying warbirds you typically see at airshows. A good percentage of them are WAY glossier than they would have been in their day. And I understand why, but still you have to take a lot of what you see, both here and in museums, with a grain of salt.
Then there’s the question of modelers, especially those that compete, who intentionally turn up the intensity of the color, as a way of adding more pa-zazz to their presentations. And again, I understand why, but…
And you know, each to his own, and all that, but for me, I get my jollies by trying to re-create, as accurately as possible, a historical artifact, such as an aircraft, ideally from actual period photographs. That to me is the pinnacle of what we’re trying to do here. But as we all know, individual mileage may vary.
Add variations in the original subject …
Same “owner”, same type of truck, same camera, same lighting,
don’t know where or when and how they were originally painted but
I suppose it would have been done to the same specifications.
Poor modelers, how should we cope with this
Then there’s this, one of my favorites. Same place, time of day, and lighting:
Two very different shades of OD!
I have to laugh here; before my unit deployed to Korea, we re-painted several jeeps to take up there. We took a lot of artistic license, which is to say, we cammo’d them in random light/dark green and black. Figured that would match the terrain up there. When they/we came back they were cycled through maintenance and painted “correctly”. So if you were a Korean modeler who took pics of us “in the wild” they would not have matched any known color/pattern then in use.
It really comes down to going off reference photos of these things, in the field, at the time.
Or if you are lucky enough to see them at some airshow.