Hey fellow AFV modelers (and painters). I’m newer here. I’ve been fortunate to meet some good people. In my quest to find just the right Dark Yellow base color , I’ve come across scores of other modelers’s ideas on how they scheme up their own dark yellow. I’ve been a fairly committed Tamiya painter, but I like the Model Master I was able to pilfer off local shelves and some MiG stuff.
The old Tamiya DY was more like their modern day Khaki. I’ve tried to use a pre-shaded gray Tamiya rattle can primer , then the Tamiya DY, and then progressing to lighter modulations such as Sand Yellow or Desert Yellow.
Anybody have better ideas? Paints.? Techniques? Always interested in learning from others. Thanks. d
Everyone will have their own approach to this question.
Here’s mine.
I read the story gentleman who owned a real WW2 Panzer and had it restored as accurately as possible. He explained how he went back to an OEM WW2 Wehrmacht paint supplier and had new batches of paint made for his panzer to ensure accuracy. He supplied his research to several hobby paint suppliers as none of the paints on the market were good matches at that time. None of the hobby paint suppliers payed his research any attention.
His comments matched my perception which is based on seeing a few items in original RAL colors in real life plus information in Tomas Chorý’s excellent book. There’s also rumors of certain paint hobby suppliers just making stuff up and guessing as actually doing research is to difficult. That was several years ago but the hobby is slow to change.
The ray of enlightenment seems to be Tomas Chorý’s excellent book plus similar sources.
Me personally, I use whatever paint I please but reference back to Chorý’s book & paint chips when I feel color accuracy is important for a German WW2 AFV.
My pet favorite paints for German AFV’s are
Floquil Military Color (discontinued 20+ years ago, I have a stock pile). Custom mixed to suit my preceptions. Thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner.
Mr Paint MRP, excellent quality acrylic-lacquer paint, that spray fantastic and seems very accurate to Chorý’s research. Straight from the bottle.
Mr Hobby/Gunzy - Custom mixed to suit my preceptions. Thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner.
Pretty much any brand of paint can give excellent results. If I were new and not “invested” in my pet favorites, go with:
a) Tamiya paints. Custom mixed to suit my preceptions (very much needed in most cases, IMO). Thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner.
b) AK Real Color. Custom mixed to suit my preceptions (if needed). Thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner.
Depending on the school of weathering & finishing you prefer the base color accuracy maybe irrelevant as washes, glazes, drybrushing, filters, pastels & pigments all alter base colors.
All allowance for weathering and scale effect aside, I would think any of those shades would have quite a variance based simply on what the Germans thinned it with, and how much they thinned it.
By the way, whatever happened to the guy who posted on the archived forum? Something about starting his own paint company. I mailed paint chips to him from modern Korean vehicles, and never heard back. Nor have I seen anything from him on the shelves.
AK Real Colors has a 4 bottle set of Dark Yellow. AK #RC5006 Set 6 German Army Dark Yellow 1943-1945 contains 4 different shades of DY that very closely match all the variants in the Chory book. I have the Chory book for comparison and the AK set is very good. Adding to that, the AK Real Colors shoot just like the Tamiya, thin them 50/50 with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner and you’ll have airbrushing paradise.
I believe that’s it. Apparently he decided not to go with a modern ROK set, which would have been easy enough.
He does appear to do four different Dunkelgelbs, however.
I still don’t recall seeing these paints in any of the places I frequent.
I checked the page with recent news and the most recent was rather old.
The existence of a web-page does not necessarily mean that there is anything
in real life.
Arizona Hobbies (model trains) seem to carry the line (their web-site has a copyright notice date 2023 so I assume they still exist.
Walthers (also mostly trains) also advertise tru-color
There are many more shops focused on trains.
I stand corrected. I actually purchased TWO of his colors last year - FWW Rail Road blue and FWW yellow. Both from a train shop. I still have not seen it in any of the Hobby Towns that I can recall. And I haven’t yet tried it. Still working on Miss Molly off and on,
Four different mixtures found in Johannes Deneke’s “Tarnanstriche des deutschen Heeres 1914 bis heute” using Revell Email Colors paints. Their Aqua Color equivalents are acceptable substitutes.
Here is the original thread from FSM on the evolution of Dunkelgelb. I’ve included the color swatches that were posted with the post, as the first one is now missing from the webpage. In order from earliest to latest, left to right.
