Playing with paint schemes

[jmlaboda]

First, as delivered C424 scheme:

Well, ALCO designers would have liked it.

When I first saw this scheme I couldn't help but find it interesting, making me think about ALCO's demonstrators' paint scheme.  Definitely nice!!!

[eric220]

It's funny, that definitely looks more taupe than gray to me.

I KNOW it's gray, based on the data in Photoshop, but man... it looks almost tan on the monitor.

Part of the problem may be the background color of the forum. It's a blue grey, which may be contrasting the warmer grey, making it appear more brown than it is.

[jmlaboda]

Speaking of gray... the Green Bay & Western used a center light gray stripe early on on a number of their units, going to the solid red scheme most of us know later on in the Diesel Era...

http://rr-fallenflags.org/gbw/gbw301gea.jpg
http://rr-fallenflags.org/gbw/gbw0301jpa.jpg

[sirenwerks]

Speaking of gray... the Green Bay & Western used a center light gray stripe early on...

I didn't know that.      And look, it's a warm grey too.  Hmmmm...

[sirenwerks]

Anyway, this is not the color you seek... Forget what you see on your monitor and think tarnished silver, that's the color I am going for.

[peteski]

Anyway, this is not the color you seek... Forget what you see on your monitor and think tarnished silver, that's the color I am going for.

Something like Accu Paint Imitation Aluminum?

[sirenwerks]

Something like Accu Paint Imitation Aluminum?

But more tarnished.  The grey used on the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha Hudsons is probably the closest I've seen to it on another train.  But even then, if you look it up you'll get different varieties of it, from whitish to near charcoal, depending on your monitor, age and condition of photo, model v prototype, etc.  But in my mind's eye its a light to medium warm grey.

[DeltaBravo]

But more tarnished.  The grey used on the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha Hudsons is probably the closest I've seen to it on another train.  But even then, if you look it up you'll get different varieties of it, from whitish to near charcoal, depending on your monitor, age and condition of photo, model v prototype, etc.  But in my mind's eye its a light to medium warm grey.

So I spent over 25 years in the printing industry, We used the Pantone Matching System to solve these types of issues.  Search Pantone 421. It seems like a good match to you Hudson.

[sirenwerks]

I went through the Pantone site you gave me and came up with 7529C as the best match to what I have in mind (RBG - 183, 169, 154 and CMYK - 7, 14, 20, 22).  I really liked 2324C too. 7529C didn't quite match the Milwaukee road photo I posted.  Not sure I like this approach so much because 1) I will have a hard time making a perfect color match when it comes to paint and 2) it shows darker than I had been working with before when I plug it into GIMP.  Still, I'd like some feedback on the difference.  When I plugged in the color code to GIMP, this is what I get for the scheme:

[DeltaBravo]

I happen to still have an ink book, but you might try this site for matching model paint using the Pantone system
http://scalemodeldb.com/paintcharts/pantone

The beauty of using the pantone system is that it keeps you using a common lanuage no matter what manufacturere of paint you choose. Additionally, in the future, you can go back and use the same shade elsewhere.

Just thinking about consistency.

[DeltaBravo]

Here is a link to the chart with PMS 7529. You are no longer in the greys you are now into the tan to brown range.

http://www.colourdirect.nl/pantone-pms-solid-chips-coated-pagina-235c.html

The "C" stands for coated and refers to gloss finish, "U" for uncoated but I don't think it is really important in our useage.

[squirrelhunter]

sirenwoers, if you say you are using an EL or Milwaukee type light gray, I believe you. It just shows upon my monitor on multiple devices as a cream color and I'm not familiar with the military colors you referenced to know exactly what shade they were.

I think an EL type gray is a good idea, it would be relatively fade resistant and good at hiding dirt.

[sirenwerks]

I happen to still have an ink book, but you might try this site for matching model paint using the Pantone system
http://scalemodeldb.com/paintcharts/pantone

The beauty of using the pantone system is that it keeps you using a common lanuage no matter what manufacturere of paint you choose. Additionally, in the future, you can go back and use the same shade elsewhere.

Just thinking about consistency.

This is an amazing resource, thank you.  It seems Model Masters Metallic Steel is the closest match to the Pantone shade I was given.  Mixing is always an option  but I need to speak to my brother, who used to work for Akzo Nobel. 

[DeltaBravo]

If you custom mix, you may never match the color again, even if you take careful measurements and keep great notes.

[mu26aeh]

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Just getting caught up on this thread, I like what it seems you have settled with.  But now I'm hungry for ice cream