Mandible Red Paint Comparison

[clmayfield]

I have not really been satisfied with how the red on my mandibles turned out, but haven't really had the chance to do anything about it. I saw a model train store in Ruidoso, NM, and lo and behold, they had a floquil display and were marking all of those out-of-date colors down. I bought everything that I could think of that might relate to Fett and here is my comparison.

Far left is Floquil Caboose Red, which is obviously good for nothing, but there for comparison and for reference.

Second from the left is Polly Scale Zinc Chromate Primer. That is recommended for the Pulce blaster, but I actually think it might make a darned good mandible color.

Sorry for the bullet holes... that is a plastic backer for a target I shoot at.

Third from the left is trusty Humbrol 73. I have always thought that this was too saturated of a red on its own for ESB, but it is actually pretty darned good.

Fourth from the left is a custom mix I created for my ESB bucket. I kept going back and forth adding white, black, and grey as well as a little Caboose Red to get this color right. In the end, I failed. In hindsight, what I should have added was some yellow to bring out a browner tint. I did paint this on my mandibles, but ended up misting with Humbrol 73 as it was too strawberry in the end for me.

Fifth from the left is Floquil Boxcar Red. Here is where it gets interesting as, to my eye, both wet and dry, Boxcar Red appears identical to Flat Caboose (pictured at the far right). I look at it, and it really looks too brown for the mandible color on its own. Many have said that this is the right color, but I feel like it would be better off mixed with some Humbrol 73.

You see a dot below and between the Boxcar Red and Flat Caboose. That is actually a customer color that I created for the purple / maroon. Ironically, it is almost the spitting image of Boxcar Red and Flat Caboose. I had thought about blinding off my mandibles and misting Flat Caboose over what I have, but what I have decided is that the colors I chose work together well. If I redo my red, I will need to redo purple / maroon as well and I don't really want to do that much of a makeover.

If I ever decide to paint another ESB bucket (and the last one almost killed me), I would likely use a mixture of Humbrol 73 and Boxcar Red/ Flat Caboose for the red and Boxcar Red/ Flat Caboose and Humbrol Blue 109 for the purple / maroon. I would then try to adjust saturation levels with greys, whites, or blacks.

 

[Jayvee]

Very cool. Interestingly, I agree that at least for the bottles that I was able to get hold of, caboose and boxcar red were identical. Maybe something was changed somewhere along the way, but there was no difference I could detect with either colour - in tests and through the airbrush...

 

[intwenothor]

Caboose and Boxcar red have got closer to one another over time; some other floquil colours appear to have done the same. Old 'DH10' caboose and old Boxcar red are noticeably different colours.
Presumably this is as the formula has changed with the latest Testors version being the furthest from the vintage colours, in some cases, as they got. In some cases the differences appear not to be observable.

I'm not sure that testing the colours against a white background is the best way to observe the colours unless white is the colour they will ultimately be next to. Surely if testing the mandible colours you'd need to see it in situ with the colours it will reside next in the finished scheme to get a better understanding of what you're looking at. Caboose may look brown on white and next to redder colours but may look very different next to black, rlm 73, reefer grey, panzer olive etc.

 

[clmayfield]

I agree that putting it next to the color it will sit by is best, intwenothor. But I have noticed that when people have posted in the past, they have done it on a white plastic surface (typically a spoon) to make the color show correctly. I usually then cut the color out, crop it, and set it next to the actual picture. This was just for reference for those who are considering different colors.

I know I had a difficult time finding a comparison of reds. In fact, part of the reason I went with the red that I did was that I did not know what it was going to look like until the masking agent was off. By then, I was screwed. My helmet green layer is particularly thick, so I have to go through a heck of a process to mask off the mandibles in an attempt to not remove paint.

 

[intwenothor]

In order for that to be effective with a crop of the spoon wouldn't you need to be able to replicate the exact conditions of the actual picture you were comparing it to for it to mean anything substantial?

I would agree that starting with Caboose would be the best starting point if working on a custom mix.

 

[clmayfield]

Yeah. That's what I do. I take the picture, blow it up, crop it, and take it and put it next to the other picture. Lighting conditions are never the same when I do this, sure. But for people who have nothing but the manufacturer's pictures, it is a step up.

Also, white is a good color to color balance against for those changing up colors to try to make those comparisons. At least that is why I always thought people show the color on the white plastic spoon. But what do I know? I'm not a professional, only a hobbyist. If you need a grease trap pumped, I'm your guy. For all other things, I am a dabbler.

 

[intwenothor]

Manufacturers pictures?

I'm a dabbler too but if I was looking to get the best colour matches I would do test patches using the colours I was thinking of using through my airbrush to get a feel of the true colour on a relatively large patch, around 3" × 3", and then as I decided to progress I'd then do mockups using loose schemes of the areas to see how they interact. The last thread started by terminal fettler demonstrates the kind of patches I'm thinking of.

If I really wanted to get anal I'd be wondering how the order of the layering affects the colours that sit on top of them. I expect that any colour sitting atop bright silver is likely to look different to the same colour sitting atop reefer grey which will in turn look different to how it looks on a white plastic spoon. A factor such as this may account for why the main dome green has that strange ethereal quality that can make it look anything from dark green to turquoise depending on the light.

 

[clmayfield]

Sorry, man. Just trying to help the community.

 

[intwenothor]

I understand that; so am I.

Whilst Caboose 1110088 is different to DH10 caboose and the difference is observable it's still pretty close. The difference between old boxcar red and old dh10 was also observable. The floquil pallette of that time period only had so many colours in it with dh10 being the clear frontrunner hence agreeing with you that current caboose would be the best place to start with personal tastes to suit.

 

[clmayfield]

Thanks for the advice. I ordered some DH10. Will post it next to others when I get it. I might take some more time to lay down layers of air brush, but that uses a lot more paint and is kind of a pain because of all of the brush cleaning involved versus cleaning a brush, but I agree, it gives a better feel.

 

[intwenothor]

When i was looking into main green a while ago I made panels of a number of colours on 3"x3" pieces of plasticard all properly primered with my airbrush. I agree that it was a time consuming pain to do. The point of making them so large was to have a large enough sample to allow my eyes to appreciate. Then I took lots of photos in a variety of lighting conditions to better appreciate their qualities. The advantage of having them on separate panels was the ability to move them about and compare them to one another or other colours etc.

Great that you can still.get it as DH10.

 

[clmayfield]

The DH10 key word was the key for eBay. The bottles say "Railroad Colors" not Floquil. Very vintage. Thanks for the tip!