Tips for reproducing a custom color mixture?

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:02 pm

Here's the deal:

Several years ago I was working on the PL 1:1000 Enterprise - doing a two-tone color scheme using aztec dummy masks - and some of my paint lifted when I removed the masks.

This wouldn't be a huge problem except that the colors I was spraying were custom mixes. I might have a tiny bit of one of the colors left (long-since dried up, but it's Mr. Color so I can soak it in thinner and maybe have something usable in a couple days) but not much, and none (I think) of the second color. And I don't think I took notes of the colors I used in the mixture...

So I need to reproduce the mixture, close enough that when I spot-paint the damaged areas, they will fit in with the surrounding areas. I figure maybe I'll start by mixing gray and white to get the right brightness, then tweak it with primary colors to match the hue. I may paint another color uniformly over the surface of the model to cut the contrast of the aztecing and (hopefully) help hide the color difference in the repair area.

My concern is that it may be tough to match the color adequately, given the subtleties of color-matching grays and color changes when the paint dries, etc. So if you've got some helpful advice, I welcome it.

Stu Pidasso · Post by **Stu Pidasso** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:05 pm

Take your paint chip to Lowe's or Home Depot. First, go through the color pallettes there, and if you don't find what you need, have them scan it in their computer matching machine. You might have to buy a gallon of it, but hey, you've spent $30 on paint before, right?

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 1:21 pm

House paint despite being acrylic does not a model paint make.

The real clincher with custom mixes is that paints will darken (usually) or lighten (rarely) when dry making it difficult to judge when wet.

Generally what I do is painstaking and arduous but it gets results. One, make sure you've got sunlight equivalent light, D50 or D60 in temp and bright. Start with the light color then start adding the darker color(s) a drop @ a time. A bottle shaker is seriously handy as you'll give yourself carpal tunnel constantly shaking bottles up. Paint a small swatch and let dry. Check, add more. Repeat.