| The colour and camouflage schemes of flying boats, and
the actual shades or hues of the colours used when painting them, have always been a subject for discussion. This is particularly so for
modellers who choose to replicate, albeit in miniature, those schemes.
Good primary reference sources are very hard to come by, and it is only in recent years
that colour pictures from WWII have come to light. These are very much dependent on the various printing processes involved and, of
course, how the original print has been produced. Notorious colour shifts can be apparent.
However, the vast majority of pictures still remain in
black and white.
There exists for all the paint used at the time paint charts which were
produced by the manufacturer as a reference guide to military paint stores and their quartermasters when issuing stocks. These charts
took the form of a list of 'paint chips', sample squares which were large enough to verify the colour and shade of the paint stocked.
If you can
find them, these charts are modellers 'Gold Dust' as they represent the colour as it was produced ie: neat, with no weathering. These 'chips' give
one a very good guide as to the shade and hue of the original colour.
Of course, today on a PC the colour displayed depends on how it
was scanned, resolutions on one's monitor and a number of other variables
including your own eyesight.
But,
nevertheless these chips will still give a good idea of a
particular colour for the modeller; at least as close as one
is likely to get, or indeed want to get, for reasonable
modelling purposes.
These charts have scanned particularly well and are a reasonably good guide but should
be used in conjunction with other resources.
Credits: Grateful thanks to
Tim Kalina
for all his help and assistant with this gallery.
Click on the
links or the
icon to view the charts:
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