Floquil Railroad Colors Lacquer and Enamel Paint Survey

stonky said:
Yeah, if you're looking to make a direct comparison to teh monitor then it calls into question a bunch of other factors: calibration, colorspace, monitor quality, etc. That said, the swatches above as well as the chart look pretty good on my end, on multiple calibrated displays in multiple environments.

I guess the best thing to do would be to generate a match to something that we can all get our hands on, by matching an original swatch to a Pantone color or to a paint mix.

That said, the two colors above look close to Pantone 492C and 418C on my end, but, again, I'm making my comparison to the color corrected image above and not an in-hand paint sample.
Click to expand...
That's another reason I asked if any of the vintage colours match a modern mm, Tamiya , humbrol or vallejo out of the bottle then we can calibrate to that .
 
If we characterize a line of paint there might be a way to do the mix matches with a little more accuracy than "Looks good to me!" - I'm going to try something.
 
Find the RGB values for each color in the different paint lines using the same chart method. Then we need to match the RGB values in the original Floquil colors by mixing different paints - it should come down to math I'm hoping. It probably makes sense to start with the closest color (a Tamiya color, for example), find it's RGB values, and then work out what you need to add to get it to the Floquil color.

Basically this, but with our measured paint colors:

http://www.jacksonsart.com/colourmixer

The upside to using the chart is that it takes perception and monitor calibration out of the equation (for the most part).
 
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Ah, I see stonky...that would be a useful method...so would that mean we would have to spray each color in the line of paint (such as Tamiya) then scan it to get the RGB's for each color?

We don't yet have the Floquil colors scanned, but after those are posted we should be able to start compairsons.
 
stonky said:
Find the RGB values for each color in the different paint lines using the same chart method. Then we need to match the RGB values in the original Floquil colors by mixing different paints - it should come down to math I'm hoping.
Click to expand...

Well, here's an experiment to see if I'm approaching this the right way. I've been doing tests to find a good acrylic match for Floquil Caboose Red. Because it's time consuming I figured I'd also practice my chipped paint techniques which is why my test pieces look like this:

X Wing Red Tests 1.jpg

Both wings were primed with black Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500. The left wing was painted with Tamiya flat white and the right wing with Vallejo flat white. I sanded the white down and then began testing reds. I started with straight colors from the bottle that have been reported to be close to Caboose Red. Not so much. Then I began mixing. I'm getting closer with the Tamiya paints, which I like the best for the way they go through the airbrush, but the closest match I've got so far is a fifty-fifty mix of Vallejo Fire Red and Vallejo Ferrari Red. That's the test patch at the middle top of the right wing and it's butted up against the Floquil Caboose Red on the left wing.

I scanned the wings and took that into Photoshop. I used the 11 pixel sampling eyedropper and took three samples of each color and then averaged those RGB numbers. Here's what I got:

Floquil Caboose Red - R: 159, G: 22, B: 16

Vallejo Mix - R: 168, G: 20, B: 1

I didn't know what to expect because I don't know what size numbers indicate a big difference in colors, but they look really close to my eye.

Using the technique stonky is talking about, would the idea be to add a touch more blue to the Vallejo mix to bring that number closer to the Floquil values? Would more blue slightly darken the mix and bring the red value down?

I figured I'd ask before shooting more tests because they take time, and if someone has an answer to help send me in the right direction that'd be great.

On the other hand, I'd be perfectly happy with the Vallejo mix as a substitute for Caboose Red on any X-Wing build.

Sorry for the long-winded post and thanks for looking.
 
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That is brilliant , this bypasses the calibration method and shows us the match ,
One thing I learned from painting is that mixing :Dcolours on a white background affects the colour your mixing , in this case it doesn't matter as all the paints are on the same background .
Grey is the background you should mix your paint on in case everyone is wondering

Now I just need to figure out if VFX Freak is painting a harrier or a b-wing :D either way I'm interested .
Thanks for taking the time
 
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Vacformedhero said:
That is brilliant , this bypasses the calibration method and shows us the match ,
One thing I learned from painting is that mixing :Dcolours on a white background affects the colour your mixing , in this case it doesn't matter as all the paints are on the same background .
Grey is the background you should mix your paint on in case everyone is wondering

Now I just need to figure out if @VFX Freak is painting a harrier or a b-wing :D either way I'm interested .
Thanks for taking the time
Click to expand...

Thanks, VAC! I sprayed all my test chips on gray primer, but I wanted to practice weathering techniques and see how the red paints would look on the paint I'd use on an X-Wing build. The reds are even brighter on the white than I expected. They look quite different on the gray even after many coats. So I decided to try matching colors on the white. I'm about to spray the Tamiya and Vallejo colors on a gray chip to see how they compare.

As for the Harrier wings, well, I have the Harrier kit in hopes of one day building a Studio Scale Walker!
 
VFX Freak said:
Thanks, VAC! I sprayed all my test chips on gray primer, but I wanted to practice weathering techniques and see how the red paints would look on the paint I'd use on an X-Wing build. The reds are even brighter on the white than I expected. They look quite different on the gray even after many coats. So I decided to try matching colors on the white. I'm about to spray the Tamiya and Vallejo colors on a gray chip to see how they compare.

As for the Harrier wings, well, I have the Harrier kit in hopes of one day building a Studio Scale Walker!
Click to expand...
which walker needs harrier , I'm aiming for 5 foot falcon , but If it's the at at , I have 1/25 scale centurion if you need a bollock I think I'll have a few spare ,
Well , the method on white is brilliant for comparing colours so it works , but when you do spray on grey put them next to this test , your brain will think they are totally different colours.
flesh tones are especially tricky on white versus grey.
just realised it is the AT-AT your building , LOL

so the ends of the harrier wings are grafted on the f16 / hornet wings for the B-Wing , interesting
 
Vacformedhero said:
I have 1/25 scale centurion if you need a bollock I think I'll have a few spare ,
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm gathering the kits to build an AT-AT. I'll have a couple sets of Harrier wings left over for anyone crazy enough to tackle the Slave One Studio Scale build.

As for the Centurion, thanks for the offer but that's one I do have, though in this context I'm not sure what "bollock" means? :unsure

I sprayed the Tamiya and Vallejo reds on gray primed plastic and they do look completely different. And they look completely wrong compared to the Caboose Red. Still more work to do, I'm fairly new at this color matching stuff and it's harder than it seems.
 
I know the site. I have both the Caboose Red and Insignia Red. It's close, but the Caboose Red is a little more brownish in my opinion.
I'd like to know what other people think about the chart.
 
Hi, just a thought so don't shoot the messanger, but as original Floquil still exist and some members have them, then why not spray a bit and get its colour code registered by whatever optical device you would use, and then check the RGB or CMYK values against the codes for that colour on the Art-paints.com site to see if they match up. If they do then we can all go get spray cans made and get spraying!
 
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