New Star Wars paints

I believe that Guy at Archive X is working on a range of acrylics, maybe due next year.
It's so long since I used enamels that I will probably go the acrylic route, probably Vallejo Model Air. I don't mind mixing colours to obtain the shade that I want, but as you see from Daniel B's chart there are standard colours for pretty much anything.
The Archive X enamels look impressive from the images, it's just that I don't have the enamel experience.
As for "accurate colours", you'll see from many forums that the term isn't as definitive or singular as we might wish it to be!
 
JHY said:
As for "accurate colours", you'll see from many forums that the term isn't as definitive or singular as we might wish it to be!
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Archive-X's are accurate. He took vintage 1975 Floquil paint samples, had them all matched by a paint manufacturer, and reproduced. It's about as close to perfect as it gets.
 
accurate to the floquil paints perhaps but reefer white for falcon basecoat i don't believe accurate. bandai crawled all over that thing hands on and did not call out white for a reason i think...my 2 cents.
i think that's what he meant by not definitive as we'd like....
 
like mentioned before, not definitive. there will always be people who insist on white.
when i saw it, it was grey. there was no halogen white light blasting on it in the darkness.
here is one of the many reasons a lot of oldschoolers think it's white:

from Famous Spaceships Of Fact And Fantasy (this is from the 2nd edition, same as the 1st)
IMGfamous_0001.jpg

furthermore somebody on this site posted either Mcune or Gawly explaining that they did do tests with white ships at the beginning but went on to explain why they ended up going with grey. that post is lost to time but may be still on here. this was many moons ago.
(that would explain the first x wing built that was white with blue stripes that was repainted)

the ONLY things that were white on display that day in the mid to late nineties Magic of Myth tour was the princesses outfit, the white paint on r2d2 and the stormtrooper.
 
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i maintain steadfastly it was not white because i've seen it with my own eyes with no dramatic spotlighting in a properly lit room but this was all argued before and at great length.
and still to this day, obviously. perhaps the Bandai guys were simply mistaken as to what they were scrutinizing...and proceeded to call out grey basecoat in error....

and the first x wing mentioned may still be white although dirtied up more to make it greyer but that was not my point, aye.
oh, and the mandibles are not parallel...
 
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modelcitizen said:
i maintain steadfastly it was not white because i've seen it with my own eyes with no dramatic spotlighting in a properly lit room but this was all argued before and at great length.
and still to this day, obviously. perhaps the Bandai guys were simply mistaken as to what they were scrutinizing...and proceeded to call out grey basecoat in error....

and the first x wing mentioned may still be white although dirtied up more to make it greyer but that was not my point, aye.
oh, and the mandibles are not parallel...
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Look at these lovely photos:

IMG_0040.JPGIMG_0029.JPGIMG_0033.JPG

They were taken by Guy Cowan....who has perfected the Archive X paint,.....if he says the Falcons base paint is Reefer White,....it's Reefer White!!

,....(also ILM said it was too)

The 5 foot Falcon looks grey because of the weathering,.....unlike the 32" which started off with grey (grime)

J
 
with all due respect many years ago when Guy was posting his paint-ups, he stated it was his theory and belief that the models weere basecoated in white because they would have theoretically not had the time to mix paints and therefore just used the color straight from the bottle. THEORY and BELIEF mind you.

pics won't deter what i personally observed at that Magic Of Myth show as i stated.
(when did ILM state white. perhaps you are referring to that Famous Starships article i posted previously)

and i annoyed my girlfriend at the time with how much time i spent making sure the basecoat was not white(which was the main reason for me being there; to determine once and for all for myself if it was indeed basecoated in white or not. but like so many discussions on this topic before, i'm going to let everyone think what they think and this topic WILL come up again as it always does....

and again, are the Bandai guys mistaken?
 
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Clearly the Falcon hull was base coated all over with Boxcar Red but was just heavily weathered with white washes on top. :wacko
 
i find that clip continuing this subject yet inconclusive. all i heard was their own in house and similar debate on what the actual basecoat was. as faulty as mcune's recolection, i'd bend towards his idea of what color it was...well, that and my own eyes as accurate as i thought they were at the time....

and one more ignored question; were the Bandai guys mistaken?

(that guy looks like he wasn't even born yet in 77 lol)
 
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TFA Falcon looks far more patchwork than any of the OT films. The 5 foot is my guide, but ultimately the colors in the 77 film had far less saturation or contrast. The film is my target.

For me this is like the Kirk's tunic question - when you go to buy one do you want Olive or Gold? Do you go real world or what it looked like on screen?
 
aye. also 1/72 is smaller than the studioscale real mcoy. i reckon it should be a bit lighter. what struck me when i saw the original was how darker the grey was than i thought and just how far from white i thought it would be (and that impression is why i'm digging in my heels after biting my tongue for so long and i STILL would defend peoples right to paint theirs pink salmon if they so feel it right).

...deep, saturated dark purple\blue led exhaust on star destroyers still gives me pause however....har har
 
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I've used Reefer White on mine and I'm happy with it, I'm still sure they used that. If they used grey what grey would it have been as it sure wouldn't be a Floquil as none of those greys at the time would work....
 
merseajohn said:
I've used Reefer White on mine and I'm happy with it, I'm still sure they used that. If they used grey what grey would it have been as it sure wouldn't be a Floquil as none of those greys at the time would work....
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John,...I hope you don't mind me posting images that you put up on FaceBook, lovely by the way

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The table is white

J
 

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modelcitizen said:
...are the Bandai guys mistaken?
Click to expand...

The Bandai guys can only say what it looks like today, not what colors were used to get there. I have also seen the model on display at NASM where it was mostly lit by sunlight from the skylights, and you're right it's a very light gray. We know it was primed in black, and ILM used Floquil for final colors. There was no gray in the Floquil line to match the final color, it was Reefer White over black, followed by weathering to give the light gray we see now.

Vallejo White Gray would be a good out of the bottle match to what I saw on display.
 
yes, the 20 year old model i saw was weathered grey not a 40 year old white model weathered to appear gray.

to clarify that confusing statement, the model i saw 20 years ago was grey before it was weathered.
was floquil reefer white with it's knarly amber/brown carrier, grey in '75 or 76'? i cannot be certain. all i know, the more modern (80's-90's) reefer white is just a yellowish hued white. not what i saw 20 years ago.

i like those pics of that model i must say. excellent paintjob for sure and it is 1/72 correct? scalewise, i believe it should be more towards white to get that "screen" look. the huge model i saw 20 years ago was more grey however. the correct hue i cannot say anymore. it was 20 years ago. all i was focusing on was signs of white white under overhangs and between jawboxes and on the mating edges of glued on model parts. i made up my mind to my satisfaction once and for all that it was not white (hard to fathom, but there are some spots of basecoat on that model that are not weathered at all).
if 70's floquil reefer white was grey in tone, i would concede with that. but then there's that oldschool ILMer's pesky statement of some kind of floquil grime to add to the mix lol. i understand grime was a greyer color then than it is nowadays....
 
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