Tunisia Tiger Green ?
Stang94737
in Tunisia ? I"ve herd people say its anywhere from US interior green to US
olive green or is it just german army green ?
HELP ! I'm going Crazy !
John Gazzola
There is an excellent color plate of the Olive green Tunisian Tigers in the Old Osprey Vanguard on the Tiger Tanks. It definitely is not US interior green, nor is it standard German army green. The closest I could come to it is the lighter US W.W.II Olive drab as a base, then a cloud pattern of some sort of khaki.
The text associate with the plate might be of some interest to you as well:
Tiger E, I/sPzAbt 504; Tunisia, spring 1943:
The overall olive green finish of this vehicle confirms its late arrival in Africa and therefore indicates a tank belonging to 504 rather than 501, whose vehicles were in the more common sand yellow. The turret is marked 142 in red trimmed in white.
Note also Stang that this Tiger does not have its headlights relocated like those of the 501. Hope this helps!
TGS1000
>olive green or is it just german army green ?
Maybe if you heard it from the "herd" it may well be a load of bull.
David Byrden
<368FBBD1...@cyberzone.net>...
> There is an excellent color plate of the Olive green Tunisian Tigers in
the Old
> Osprey Vanguard on the Tiger Tanks. It definitely is not US interior
green, nor is
> it standard German army green.
Well! You can forget that illustration.
And probably most other illustrations. People
are often willing to take a guess when they
don't know the real colour of a tank. But
even when they DO, listen to this true story:
Hilary Doyle has been studying German
panzer colours for an upcoming book. When he
finished the new osprey vanguard Tiger book,
(a couple of years ago I think) he was VERY
happy that for the first time he could send
the artists EXACT colour references for the
vehicles.
When he got to see the book he was
horrified. All his colours had been
lightened! He brought this up at his next
meeting with the publishers. They basically
replied to him "we tried painting with the
your camouflage colours and we found that
you can't SEE anything"
ANYWAY. To answer your question.
There were two Tiger units sent to Tunisia
at different times and they were probably
painted differently. Mr Doyle visited the
Bovington Museum Tiger last year, from the
first unit, the 501st. He took the opportunity
to find out what colour it was. This was
difficult because the Brits had painted it in 1949,
but since it was taken apart he was able
to find bits and pieces of original colour.
It had an ordinary two-tone green and
brown camouflage scheme, as described in the
Panzer Colours 1 book, with the intriguing
factor that the scheme was obsolete at the time
and so the manufacturer was apparently using up
old stocks of paint. The scheme was RAL 8000 brown
with one-third RAL 7008 green applied in thick,
wavy bands with soft edges. "thick bands" probably
means about 4 feet wide in this case.
Alas I do not have references for those
colours. I saw a glimpse of them at one time
and they are *not* very different from each
other. The green is darker.
David
Leif Hellström
(Snip)
> Hilary Doyle has been studying German
>panzer colours for an upcoming book. When he
>finished the new osprey vanguard Tiger book,
>(a couple of years ago I think) he was VERY
>happy that for the first time he could send
>the artists EXACT colour references for the
>vehicles.
> When he got to see the book he was
>horrified. All his colours had been
>lightened! He brought this up at his next
>meeting with the publishers. They basically
>replied to him "we tried painting with the
>your camouflage colours and we found that
>you can't SEE anything"
(Snip)
The publisher's were quite right, too. If you paint a small rendition
of an object (whether a model or a painting) you cannot use the same
colours as on the original or it will look much too dark. If you paint
a tank model with original Olive Drab, for example, it will look
almost black.
This well-known phenomena is called "scale effect". There are
different opinions on how to handle it but most agree that you need to
mix in a certain amount of light grey, etc., in your colours to make
things look "right".
/Leif
------------------------------------------------------
"There are no experts. Only varying degrees of ignorance."
John Gazzola
If you had bothered to read everything I wrote, you would have realized that the tank Stang is talking about is from the 504 not the 501. These arrived in the theater later than those of the 501, and were painted a light olive color. There are plenty of written accounts of this. Moreover, if you have no references, then how do you know what color green it was? Your saying this just from your memory? Oh, I forgot, you don't believe in printed references, I guess we should just throw all our books in the trash, right?? You know just by looking exactly how a tank's paint looked almost 60 years ago in the Tunisian campaign, right??
David Byrden wrote:
John Gazzola <jgaz...@cyberzone.net> wrote in article
<368FBBD1...@cyberzone.net>...
> There is an excellent color plate of the Olive green Tunisian Tigers in
the Old
> Osprey Vanguard on the Tiger Tanks. It definitely is not US interior
green, nor is
> it standard German army green.
Well! You can forget that illustration.
And probably most other illustrations. People
are often willing to take a guess when they
don't know the real colour of a tank. But
even when they DO, listen to this true story:
Hilary Doyle has been studying German
panzer colours for an upcoming book. When he
finished the new osprey vanguard Tiger book,
(a couple of years ago I think) he was VERY
happy that for the first time he could send
the artists EXACT colour references for the
vehicles.
When he got to see the book he was
horrified. All his colours had been
lightened! He brought this up at his next
meeting with the publishers. They basically
replied to him "we tried painting with the
your camouflage colours and we found that
you can't SEE anything"
ANYWAY. To answer your question.
Stang94737
say , I use Humbrol, Testors , Aeromaster or Floquil paint No. so & so, to
get a close match to this color on the Green Tiger ?
A famous American once said: Can't we all just get along .
David Byrden
> David:
> If you had bothered to read everything I wrote, you would have realized
that
> the tank Stang is talking about is from the 504 not the 501.
He never said that in his
message. I don't quite see why *your*
message should define what *he* wants
to ask. Maybe you are in private
communication?
> Moreover, if you have no references, then how do you know
> what color green it was? Your saying this just from your
> memory?
I thought I had explained this in
my post, but if you want the full details:
[1] Hilary Doyle spent a day in the
RAL headquarters, Germany, talking to
their archivists.
[2] He came home with a series of RAL
colour cards for the wartime colours.
[3] He took these to Bovington Museum
and compared them to original paint
remaining on the actual tank.
[4] I asked him what he saw and
he showed me the RAL cards.
Would you like any of these steps
explained in greater detail?
David
John Gazzola
OK, I'll quit now if that's the way you want it. It's your header anyway. Besides,
I don't have time for this, I'm too busy cutting all the color plates out of my
Vanguard books and using them to line my birdcage..................
David Byrden
> OK, I'll quit now if that's the way you want it. It's your header anyway.
Besides,
> I don't have time for this, I'm too busy cutting all the color plates out
of my
> Vanguard books and using them to line my birdcage..................
I don't want to give the impression
that the Vanguard artists don't care.
They pay attention to what you tell them
and they use the information they are given.
But when a colour is too dark, they are
under orders to just "turn up the brightness".
David
John Gazzola
What do you think then about what Leif said on scale effect, because I happen
to agree with him.
David Byrden
> David:
>
> What do you think then about what Leif said on scale effect, because I
happen
> to agree with him.
It puzzles me. I can't see how
it would agree with the laws of physics.
David
John Gazzola
BucholtzC
The lightening effect is called atmospheric perspective by the high-falutin'
art types. If you live within view of wooded hills, notice how the farther away
they are, the more pale their color. It's not because different species of
trees live on different hills; it's because particles in the air alter the way
we perceive the reflected light from these farther-away objects.
In painting on a two-dimensional canvas, you can suggest distance by using less
color and more white for mountains, trees, armadillos, etc. For us modelers, it
means that "scale color" may be an issue if one is trying to replicate not just
a tank or airplane but the way a tank or airplane is PERCEIVED by the human
eye. Armor modelers often stress high points with drybrushing and low points
with washes; these are highlights the real items did not show in real life in
precisely the same manner. But, for the model, these techniques are effective,
since they replicate the way a real piece of armor is PERCEIVED, taking the
model's scale into account. Aircraft modelers are still struggling to find a
standard way of doing this--you'll see washes in black and in other colors,
counter-shaded panels, pastels, paints lightened for scale effect and other
techniques intended to add life to their replicas. The mixture of techniques
varies from modeler to modeler.Unfortunatley, like many weathering techniques,
scale color is too often overdone; the result can be a model that "feels" like
it's being viewed from a long way away.
In the case of the Tiger profile, painting a 1:35 model the precise shade
specified by the RLM standard may appear to be too dark. Same goes for the
printed profile, although a responsible publisher would make sure that the true
color specification was printed next to any profile that's had its colors
altered.
--Chris Bucholtz
(Removing his white lab coat...)
Jeff Rankin-Lowe
BucholtzC wrote:
Yes...but, when the model is given a "scale colour" paint scheme and is an
appropriate distance away (corresponding to the distance at which a 1:1 scale
thingie sits), I think that the"scale colour" will be too light. That's because
although we think the model is the correct distance away, our eye/brain partnership
*knows* that it's still quite close.
This has always bothered me about "scale colour". I understand and accept its basic
concept, but I think the theoretical reasons go too far beyond what should be done
in practice.
(Excuse me while I adjust my asbestos underwear.)
OK, fire at will. :-)
Jeff Rankin-Lowe
David Byrden
(Re: lightening a paint colour for smaller scales)
> > It puzzles me. I can't see how
> > it would agree with the laws of physics.
> I think it has more to do with the human eye than the laws of physics.
There is no WAY it can have
anything to do with the human eye.
When you look at an object, you do
not physically touch it with your eye. So,
whether it is near or far away is completely
unknown to your eye. All that you get is
the photons that enter your pupil. The state
they are in by the time they get to you is
determined by the laws of physics.
David
David Byrden
<19990106150543...@ng-ce1.aol.com>...
> The lightening effect is called atmospheric perspective by the
high-falutin'
> art types. If you live within view of wooded hills, notice how the
farther away
> they are, the more pale their color.
Yes, this effect is real, but when you
are looking at a 1/76 tank model - say from
two feet away - then that's the scale
equivalent of 150 feet.
Now, you will get atmospheric fading
over a distance of one or two miles, but I
don't think you'd notice it over 150 feet.
David
DanaS64562
sort of like this. I suppose that one could work out that, say, a 1/35 model of
a Tiger tank seen up close represents a real Tiger X number of feet or yards
away. But surely the model will feature a lot more small detail (rivet heads,
etc.) than would actually be visible at that distance. So the concept of
"distance realism" doesn't really apply to modeling, does it?
DanaS64562
Leif Hellström
> Yes, this effect is real, but when you
>are looking at a 1/76 tank model - say from
>two feet away - then that's the scale
>equivalent of 150 feet.
> Now, you will get atmospheric fading
>over a distance of one or two miles, but I
>don't think you'd notice it over 150 feet.
> David
I once saw a photo which illustrated the effect very well. Somebody
had built a large scale R/C model of his own aircraft (an old
Fairchild, I believe; can't really remember) and had painted it in the
same overall orange colour as the original, using the SAME PAINT as on
the original. The model was then placed in the foreground, on an
airfield, with the real aircraft behind it, maybe 50-70 feet away, and
a photo taken. The difference in colour was VERY noticeable, with the
model appearing darker and more intensely orange than the original.
If you have an FS 595 fan, or any other similar set of colour samples,
try the following experiment outdoors when the light is good:
1) Select a distinctly coloured object (car, sign, door, etc.) with an
even surface (e.g. painted metal) at some distance, say 50-100 feet
away;
2) Holding your colour samples a foot or so away from your eye, select
a matching colour; note its number;
3) Walk up to the object;
4) Placing the same colour sample against the object, note that the
sample now appears much too light.