What is "scale color", i.e. painting to reflect not full sized object

[Zubie]

Because there is a paint brand called "ScaleColor" and scale color can reflect color families, I'm having a lot of trouble looking up web pages on shifting colors to better reflect the appearance of a subject when done at a different size - namely much smaller. It seems like a bit of a silly question given the main subject here are speculative fictional subjects, but we still get questions about what color something or other is and in particular with regard to the wide variety of things that are Grey.

I know I've read about this before, but I forget the details.

[seam-filler]

You might get better results if you search for "color scale effect".

e.g. https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_tech ... /2385.aspx

Unfortunately, though, there is no hard and fast rule on this, but essentially, you want to tone down the colors of a model so that it appears more realistic - i.e. less bling.

Think of a 1/72 scale aircraft model viewed from 1 foot away. What you want is the equivalent of looking at the real thing from 72 feet away. At that sort of distance the human eye loses the ability to resolve detail as well and colors tend to fade and blend. But it's still not that simple - an aircraft voiewd on a bright, sunny day looks entirely different to the same thing viewed on a dull, cloudy day.

Hence, no hard and fast rule.

[Richard Baker]

My general rule of thumb is to desaturate the colors used- atmospheric perspective does this with distance and we are accustomed to it. Desaturation is due to the particulates in the air so to make something small and close look like a big thing in the distance you need to 'add particulates' (add white typically).

[WraithVerge]

Due to the size of a model as opposed to the size of the real item it represents (IRL or sci-fi/ fantasy), a model will display color differently than it's full-size counterpart. This is due in part to the 1:1 sized item having more surface area to reflect light back, as opposed to the smaller model appearing darker, even though it is painted the same color.

[Bellerophon]

My understanding of scale effect is that it simulates atmospheric perspective, by which intervening haze is a depth perception cue, like in the matte painting in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. How it applies to space models is something for the modeler to think about.

Mostly it means I have a rule never to paint anything black. More of a guideline, actually.

[Zubie]

The only think paint-wise that I was pretty clear as a direct part of "scale" was the usage of gloss finishes. A high gloss finish automatically indicates miniature given the scale aspect of a gloss finish or any highly reflective finish. In RL, a gloss finish is surprisingly reflective, but to a certain distance. Sure you may clearly see your face on a clear gloss finish when standing just a couple of feet from a subject, but in 1/72 or 1/144 that is only a fraction of an inch.

I haven't played with semi-gloss or satin finish and I wonder if that's a good compromise.

[jpolacchi]

Well, gone are the days of FX miniatures. ILM paved the way to CG and building film miniatures went the way of the dinosaur. Painting in scale is just as it means and what others have written in here. It is the muting and dulling down of colors and glossy sheens. Colors become dull and less vibrant further away to tick the eye. Glossy whites become flatter the further the distance or (the scale). Same with other colors, you dull them down. I've struggled with how to dull down clear coats. I know you can use dulling powders as additives to do that, but how do you know how much to add in? Do you just learn it and know, or is there a specific ratio or basic math formula you use to acquire the right kind of dulling down of a glossy clear coat? That is I have never mastered, and I still don't know or understand how to achieve that. ILM certainly had that dialed in. They painted in scale with everything you saw on screen. With the magic of lighting and cinemaphotography, they were able to make scale-built models look massive and give them a depth and realism with the right paint job, weathering and lighting that I rarely see done with a CG model. These days, all that is made in a computer. How boring.

[Wug]

In general the scale color effect is lightening a modelss colors and sometimes reducing the contrast between the colors to make the model look the way it does in tis natural environment.

Not everyone believes that the scale color effect is real. David Parker explains why he thinks it's wrong here:

https://modelphilosopher.com/realism-with-david-parker/

In particular look at he photo of the line of Ferraris.

I think part of the disagreement is that models at contests are seen under artificial lighting and on a white table cloth. The light background makes the model appear darker.

[Zubie]

In general the scale color effect is lightening a modelss colors and sometimes reducing the contrast between the colors to make the model look the way it does in tis natural environment.

Not everyone believes that the scale color effect is real. David Parker explains why he thinks it's wrong here:

https://modelphilosopher.com/realism-with-david-parker/

In particular look at he photo of the line of Ferraris.

Funny thing though, if you color sample the same area of each respective Ferrari, you will get a different shade of red at every spot
Personally, for a variety of reasons, photographs are only somewhat better than paintings. At best they can support evidence of a particular color with respect to some official paint guide. Unfortunately given the chemistry involved in film emulsions and printing and the range of lighting conditions under which photos are taken, the limitations are self evident (let alone, in the case of field operations, the use of closest available paint coupled with wear and tear).

On the other hand I can see where David Parker is coming from. I've seen some nicely finished subjects which do have panel line shading and subtle highlighting or shadowing which do photograph nicely and add something akin to aztecing to some miniatures and improves a sense of scale to the thing.

I think part of the disagreement is that models at contests are seen under artificial lighting and on a white table cloth. The light background makes the model appear darker.

I think that is indeed part of the problem with many SFF subjects, like the perennial "what color is the Enterprise" question. After all a lot of the spaceships and starships are mostly photographed against the blackness of space!

[Deckard]

This a good opinion and may give some new insights, it is directed at ship modellers and long winded but its fundamentals are valid for other subjects. I've always scaled colour but I can give no definitive ratios, that is the further away things are from you in atmospheric conditions the lighter the overall colouring appears, though red will never fade to pink.

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/vi ... 4&t=154868

[Bellerophon]

Both the David Parker article and the one at shipmodels.info are the right way to look at it, pragmatically but philosophically. There's a wrong way, too, and you see it online in people seeking advice or offering it, who assume there's a right way of doing "scale effect" that consists simply of following some technique. It's the paint-by-numbers approach.

Nothing wrong with following some technique, it's good practice and you learn from experience what results to expect. But to me modeling starts with visualizing how you want the finished model to look. When we were kids, it started with the cool box art. We'd work all afternoon on our latest kit and end up with something that looked great to our imaginative young eyes. Eventually we were dissatisfied with a model, and had a Scarlett O'Hara moment when we swore, as God was our witness, we'd never do such a lousy job again!

So I have to wonder, not at the self-styled experts (they're as persistent as stupidity), but at modelers who follow their advice so blindly that, say they're building a Spitfire, the result doesn't look as much like a model of a Spitfire as a model of someone else's model, with some garish overdone technique.

[Wug]

Zubie

Yeah. Not only are SF spacecraft photographed against the blackness of space, they've frequently gone through multiple photographic passes, optical printing, and color timing.

Someone on therpf built an airlock from from one of the Alien films. It's been a while so my memory fails me, but the movie miniature was white and appeared gray on screen, or it was gray and appeared white on screen.


Deckard

Thanks for the link to the great article on shipmodels.info.


Bellerophon

Good points.


No matter how you paint your models, someone on the internet won't like it and will tell you and the world that they don't like it. So experiment and paint them the way you want to.

Mike

[Zubie]

This post sort of duplicates a post I made on the Galactica threads, but this thread is permanent and BSG's isn't. Moreover I think it is on point.

The refs for SF hardware often look darker than their appearance on film or TV. On the other hand, I think this image which appears to be from the model shop of Return of the Jedi seems to clearly show a scaled color difference between a very large scale Tie and some very small ones. The large TIEs are in a dark neutral grey whereas the small standard TIEs are apparently white.



Do you think this applies to the modelers and cinematographers understanding how they would actually look on the final print?

p.s. btw this photo I have seen referred to as a Lucas design approval photo. I think it's more of a final inspection of shooting models given that there are several of each and an entire squadron of the tiny ones. One doesn't build a bunch of identical detailed painted models to find out if Lucas likes the "look" of the thing.

[Bellerophon]

The little white TIE fighters are clearly intended for distance shots, and I would bet they were painted that way because they were going to be photographed under much lower light.