The Ship Model Forum

Sometimes you can still find the Testor's Modelmaster paints on eBay.

I just bought some Modelmaster Kure, Yokosuka, and Sasebo Naval Arsenal colors there.

Bob

Hi,
What good is WEM paints if they are never in stock!!!!!!!!!! The real problem with WEM paints is that the price is the cheapest if you buy it from them. When it's in stock every online hobby shop buys it up. I have found USN 5-n and 20-B at many hobby shops online, but they gouge you with thier high prices and then again with the high S&H charge. I want to use the correct colors on my DD-555 that was measure 21, but every time WEM has the paint I don't have the money to buy it.

Roger

Love to use White Ensign, unfortunately many of the colors are OOS. John Snyder kindly offered to set up an order for me to include back-order items, but I hate to have things lingering.

Still, if that's what everyone thinks is best, I'll probably do it. Their tins seem to be very reasonable despite the exchange rate and I like the idea of starting with an accurate paint.

I use WEM Colourcoats whenever they are available. There have been some supply problems with their more popular tints, but that seems to be loosening up a bit. When I can't get WEM's line, I go with Model Masters. I use enamels exclusively and those two seem to be the best. I've never gotten the hang of airbrushing with acrylic.

Bob

It's PollyScale's old line that had the WWII-specific colours, which is now technically no longer produced, but you'll still find some on store shelves.

WEM Colourcoats or LifeColor Naval Paints for acrylic.

WEM, when they can obtain the needed pigments, is really the color standard, as far as I can tell.
WW2 US paints did not have FS numbers. WEM's colors are a close match to Snyder & Short paint chips, which are well researched.

See:
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/

Pollyscale is Floquil and I can't find any color labels that indicate WW2 USN.

http://www.testors.com/category/136648/Acrylic_Paints

If you use enamels, you can't go wrong with WEM's Colorcoats - they're matched to the actual paint chips and are named with the original paint names, rather than the manufacturer's own subjectively made-up name.

If acrylics are your thing, PollyScale has paints named after the actual colour names as well, but are not as accurate as WEM's.

I was looking at the Tamiya paints and they certainly seem to have at least some of the IJN colors, as well as paints that sound like they might match the USN colors. However, they've no FS or other numbers to identify their paints to an official standard. I hear that they are good (and even smell nice!) and they are quite inexpensive.

Then there's Polly-S and ModelMaster, Floquil seems to be sort of gone, Testors owns nearly everyone, most of the numbers aren't cross-referenced easily with Navy and FS numbers...AAGH!

Can anyone direct me to a site where it is relatively easy to find out the colors used and how to buy them for my ships? If it matters, I'm painting 1/2400 ships for Naval Thunder: Battleship Row. While I could wing it, I'm continuously amazed at how many shades of blue and grey there are! I at least want to START with the official color and lighten it up a bit for the "scale effect"