Helmet Colours - help

G

Gypsyboy

Active Hunter
I know there are several threads that list off colours for painting the helmets, but I seem to be encountering some amount of confusion. Depending on the images, and colour recommendations, the ESB dome and cheek colour varies from quite green, to more olive, to a colour that appears to have some blue in it. Can someone help clarify this for me? I have been trying to get my ESB painted for some time, but no matter what I try I am not happy with the colour. Can someone just say in simple terms whether I need to lean more toward green, olive, or blueish?

Thanks
GB
 
That does help to clarify. Part of my problem, however, is (believe it or not) there is no longer a place anywhere in town where I can purchase model paints. I would have to order them online, which ends up being more $ than I want to put into a little bit of paint.

Here's my question put in another way.... if anyone has the new Boba Fett PEZ dispenser (I purchased mine new within about 2 months or so from Toys R Us), would you say that the colour on the dome and cheeks is fairly close to what it should be for ESB? When I compare my PEZ dispenser with the pics you lead me to they appear to be quite close. I will need to match by eye rather than paint colour codes, and we all know that pics on a screen don't really give a true tone.
 
I know the PEZ dispenser colour comparison request is kinda - well - goofy, but PLEASE???????????????????? All I need is something I can use as an eyeball compare thingy. C'mon, I know many of you have the dispenser. Don't try to pretend you're too cool for it. LOL
 
I don't have a pez dispenser but in the words of Austin Powers, at the end of the day, you gotta do it for yourself baby! Get it close and run with it. Of course I may be the wrong person to comment on this as I'm doing an annimated Fett...

It all comes down to how accurate you want to be. If you like the colors on the Pez, go with it!
 
i don't use off the shelf paint, i mix and match the paint myself according to the pics that's are out there and any kind of reference material taking lighting effects into consideration. as far as your pez question is concerned. don't use it as a reference.
 
Well, I may have found a good source for the olivegrun. I can mix for the others, but for whatever reason I have found that particular green to be very illusive. I made what I think is a very good red for the mandibles by mixing true red with brown and just a hint of orange. The yellowy-tannish-whatever colour on the right earpieces was tricky, but I think I got pretty close with that. I'm OK with "pretty close", but whatever I have been doing to try to get the dome/cheek colour was just NOT "pretty close" at all.
 
volkerc said:
i don't use off the shelf paint, i mix and match the paint myself according to the pics that's are out there and any kind of reference material taking lighting effects into consideration. as far as your pez question is concerned. don't use it as a reference.
Click to expand...

:lol: Thanks. "don't use it" is as good an answer as I need. LOL The only reason I asked is because depending on what pic I look at it sometimes actually seems pretty close. Since I had no way of knowing which tone on my monitor was more true, I didn't know if it was really close or not.

:cheers
 
Gypsyboy said:
Well, I may have found a good source for the olivegrun. I can mix for the others, but for whatever reason I have found that particular green to be very illusive. I made what I think is a very good red for the mandibles by mixing true red with brown and just a hint of orange. The yellowy-tannish-whatever colour on the right earpieces was tricky, but I think I got pretty close with that. I'm OK with "pretty close", but whatever I have been doing to try to get the dome/cheek colour was just NOT "pretty close" at all.
Click to expand...

I find that adding a bit of green to red will nicely produce the kind of dark red for tha mandibles. I'm sure most people know, when mixing there own colors, you add the base color's opposite to make it darker instead of adding black or white to lighten or darken.
 
Gypsyboy said:
:lol: Thanks. "don't use it" is as good an answer as I need. LOL The only reason I asked is because depending on what pic I look at it sometimes actually seems pretty close. Since I had no way of knowing which tone on my monitor was more true, I didn't know if it was really close or not.

:cheers
Click to expand...


you are using your monitor to mix the paint? i had that idea as well, and it does not work well. i went by old photographs, you can get a bunch online that are quite good. i also think that the helmet color of the 12 inch marmit fett makes for a good reference of the helmet color(the green, not the red, as there were 2 different versions of that helmet), not so the rest of the figures armor.
 
as an aside... i do a lot of color matching based on monitor colors. there are a few things i usually do.

the first is to make sure you're looking at a properly color balanced image. movies are usually shot with some sort of tint to the lighting.

i usually take my photos into photoshop and adjust the white balance as well as i can. usually that involves looking for something in the picture that you know should be pure white, and setting that as the white level. then doing the same for black. it's a quick and dirty type thing, but it helps a bit.

the other is color calibration on the screen. i dunno about windows, but apple has a color calibration tool built in to the os. it's not as precise as using a hardware calibrator, but it can make a difference.

but aside from that nonsense...

i personally get WAY more joy out of trying to mix and match colors to get the look i want than by following a list that someone else sorted out. i think it's fun trying out different things and seeing what i get!
 
I know you can't really depend on monitor colours to match stuff, which is why I was looking for a "real world" thing that I could compare with. Hence the PEZ dispenser. LOL I find that many of the colours on the helmet compare fairly well among various pictures, so I feel quite confident that I can come close. The green of the dome and cheeks, however, was displaying such a wide array of tones and shades that I simply could not even come to an educated guess about it. That's why I was hoping to get the feedback about the PEZ thing. Even if it isn't similar in colour, at least knowing that gives me an advantage I didn't have before.
 
That was funny. I'm reminded of WAAAAAAY back in the eighties, on an episode of - I think it was Moonlighting. You see the secretary, who is an older lady not familiar with computers, sitting down trying to "type" something. She makes a mistake and takes out the bottle of white-out and tries to fix it on the screen. Man, that still makes me laugh when I think of it.
 
It's not really my intention to keep this thread running, but I just thought I would extend a thanks to those who suggested I go out of my way to find the Panzer Olivegrun 1943. Now that I have painted the dome/cheeks with the stuff I realize I would never have mixed that colour in a million years. Oh, by the way... it turns out it's closer to the colour of my Boba PEZ dispenser than anything else I've seen. LOL Not an exact match, but actually not bad.
 
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