HMS Prince of Wales

[Sutho]

Even tweaking those images above in photo shop I am able to get the blue looking similar to the WEM B6 tin. What I cant seem to understand is why the book supplied by WEM at the top that I showed a photo of has a paint chip of B6 on the back cover that looks similar to the photos that you posted above. Why is the WEM B6 tin different to the paint chip on the back of the books they sell.

Its all really confusing now about why there are different versions of B6 but I think it might be safe to say that if there is that different version of B6 it would have to be it that was on HMS Prince of Wales.

Incidently I actually painted the model above in Russian Northern Fleet Grey from WEM as those tins looked similar to what is on the back of the book above.

Just a second thought is it possible the B6 could have been mixed with something like 507C in order to dull down the bright colour we know and conserve paint as it was in short supply. Could ships crews had done this?

[John Snyder]

a. It's not OUR book, it's the product of WR Press and their printer, and we have no control of someone else's accuracy or lack thereof;
b. Transparent printer's inks will never precisely match opaque paints (which is why the Pantone system is virtually useless for paint matching).

[Sutho]

Ok thaks for that about the paint chips on the back of the books. It makes allot of sense. I know there has been allot of confusion over colours because of the old WWII photos not looking as we would expect them to look.

Maybe that is the case for POW that all the B&W photos and colour video is degraded and could never capture the right true to life colours at the time. Even the ocean and sky in that video is not true to life for sea and sky colour. Then there are the reflections from the sea, sun, shadows on the ship itself. When I tweak those colour photos of HMS Howe on the last page I can make B6 look like the WEM tin of B6. Maybe its the photos that have been deceptive all along.

[Sutho]

Even this photo on the previous page I can tweak a little in regards to shadows, brightness and highlights to make it look like this:



Maybe we have been going round in circles chasing something that does not exist when it is probably the colour spectrum and sensitivity of films, poor inks as has been suggested to us. I am stil confused though after seeing the colour footage of HMS Prince of Wales.

[Lance]

This is the HMS Howe in the Suez-Canal

http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_di ... s_howe.htm

[EJFoeth]

Did you see the previous page in this thread? If so, you could have seen this was already quite clear.

[Sutho]

I found this on the Repluse and Warspite fan page in the other forum area. A photo of colours B55 and G45 being used. I know its an old colour photo but from what I can see the colour photo is close but still not a good match to real colours. I think it might be a good idea if we can find many other Royal Navy photos in colour just to see how the colours can change compared to what we know are the real colours on the WEM tins.

[EJFoeth]

This is a screenshot from an IWM DVD "The Royal Navy at War; British Pacific & East Indies Fleets" that I have on my blog (link to post) Note that this frame is taken from the USS Saratoga and I guess they do not use UK-based film. There's also a DVD "Royal navy at war in colour" that would be useful in this regard as well. Of course, the colour film of HMS Prince of Wales is not that DVD but on the IWM KGV-class DVD.

[Russ2146]

Using color photography to judge the accuracy of paint colors is virtually impossible.
1. The unexposed film itself was not stable and was eventually found to degrade with heat. It still does.Also, the film itself. Kodachrome/color produces "warmer" images than reality.
2. The environment in which the photography was done affects the image seen and obtained.
a. Water vapor at or on the sea creates a haze, evident in the last picture above.
b. Ultra-violet light
c. Polarization of light
(take your camera, digital or film, with a haze filter, a UV filter and a polarizing filter, to Brighton on a sunny day and take some experimental shots along the beach and over the water, then compare the results)
3. The exposed, processed film/prints are subject to deterioration and color shift. Go to historylink101.com and look at their colection of slide images of land and sea shots of WWII obtained from the US National Archives for good examples.

[John Snyder]

I found this on the Repluse and Warspite fan page in the other forum area. A photo of colours B55 and G45 being used. I know its an old colour photo but from what I can see the colour photo is close but still not a good match to real colours. I think it might be a good idea if we can find many other Royal Navy photos in colour just to see how the colours can change compared to what we know are the real colours on the WEM tins.

That is B20, not B55.

[richtea]

Would like to point out that the picture in the post above is Renown not Repulse.
Repulse was not modified and still had her spotting top when sunk,
Regards
Richard

[Laurence Batchelor]

More from flickr:


Another one here I haven't seen before:

This above photo was taken at Colombo on the 28th November 1941 on her way East and has been in the internet for some years.

Regards
LB

[Laurence Batchelor]

heres a bit of a strange tinted one



and that other one

The 2nd photo in this post was taken at Ceylon late 1941 according to the original photo album it came from.

Kind Regards
LB

[Laurence Batchelor]

Whilst undertaking some naval research I stumbled across this in a wartime newspaper so scanned it in.

Note the censorship, and poor image quality indicative of newspaper photographs, but its value is it gives you some of her stb. side taken at Cape Town on her 'way out East'.



Regards
LB

[EJFoeth]

The image from the newspaper is quite interesting, showing the starboard side properly. For some reason that side is not photographed as often as the port side, and that is not because most pics where taken in port! The image with the blue outline looks one of these horrendous ebay reproductions/frauds of known images. I bought the official IWM photograph: it is spectacular!

The flickr images (from Ian Meadows) are very interesting as I have not seen them in print. There's also an image of HSM Pow from ww2images on Flickr than you can buy (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ww2images/ ... otostream/) , but the original is very unsharp. Would be more interesting if it were the starboard side

[Sutho]

Whilst undertaking some naval research I stumbled across this in a wartime newspaper so scanned it in.

Note the censorship, and poor image quality indicative of newspaper photographs, but its value is it gives you some of her stb. side taken at Cape Town on her 'way out East'.



Regards
LB

I have always been curious about this photo and often wondered if the paint we knew was B5 on the bow was changed to MS1.

[Sutho]

Ok thought I would ressurect this for a moment. I have been playing around with paints today and drew a few patterns and took some photos for comparisson purposes.



Here I have tins from left row down 507A, 507B and 507C, centre down MS1, MS2, MS3, MS4 and MS4A and right B5 and B6.

The diagram top is MS1, B5, MS3, MS4A and 507C

Middle is MS1, MS2, B5, MS3, and 507C

Bottom MS1, MS2, MS3, B6 and 507C

[KSuM3]

Just before I head off on my trip I have browsed through model gallery and it would appear someone else on this site has done a POW in an altered B6 scheme:

That is on this sites model gallery section and constructed by a Ken Summa, unfortunately no ability to contact this member exists so no luck discussing the scheme with him.

I just rejoined the forum after a long hiatus and found it rather cool to see my work being referenced. At the risk of raising a dead thread, I thought I'd chime in.

I built that Prince of Wales years ago and, unfortunately, lost my notes on exactly what colors I used to paint the model. I do know that I used the color information found in "The King George Class" by Robert Dumas, published in Warship Vol III and then matched paint colors using Snyder & Shorts RN WW2 Ship Colors, Set 1.

[John Snyder]

Sutho, I just have to point out that merely desaturating the color out of a digital image will not give the same grayscale result as a photo made on orthochromatic film, which is would you should be trying to achieve if comparing to the period photos.

[KSuM3]

I found some of my notes, but not the exact list of paints I used. I recall comparing the drawings on the Tamiya box top with the drawings provided by Dumas in his article and some photos I've got and found the pattern on the box to be pretty good. Dumas gives the colors as:

507C (Light Grey)
MS4 (Light Grey-Green)
PB10 (Dark Ultramarine Blue)
B5 (Medium blue - Dumas indicates the color was listed as B20, but B20 was not available until 1943)
MS3 - Medium Grey Green
MS2 - Dark Grey Green

I used both Testor and WEM colors matched to Snyder and Shorts color chip set, but then lightened (by mixing in white or going to a lighter shade) to account for scale effect (ie, I think straight MS2 on 1/350 would be too dark so it needs to have a little white mixed in).