Landships II

Mark Hansen · Legend

Technical assistance required

eugene · Field Marshal

a good background, is a strict white, say a inside of a box, that usually works the best

Michael Taylor · Lieutenant-Colonel

Kodak used to produce grey scale and colour reference cards for use in the printing trade, although these are probably quite expensive if still available. A good substitute can be made using white card with black, grey and coloured squares of card, (magenta, cyan). There are acrylic inks available in magenta and cyan, but I found that a homemade grey scale photographed with an object gave a good indication of tone, and a few squares of pure colour helped in making a match. If you can find the Methuen Handbook of Colour, that was and still is used in WW1 aircraft datafile reference, but it seems to be very hard to find a copy.

Roger Todd · Legend

It would seem various companies make colour charts, such as:

http://www.halecolorcharts.com/products.html

Also, a downloadable chart here:

http://www.windbrookranch.com/color_calibration.php

It would seem that one leading standard is the Gretag MacBeth Color Reference Chart. There's a company that sells them:

http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/gmb/eye-one_colorchecker.html

And GretagMacbeth themselves live here:

http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/

With a Flash walkthrough of how it works here (I presume - as my PC has no sound, I can't tell what the feller is on about):

http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/downloads/flash/colorchecker/Click_Here_To_Start.html

Mark Hansen · Legend

Thanks Eugene, unfortunately I'm taking photos of the Mk IV in the AWM so it's going to be a bit hard to put a large white box around it.

Thanks Michael, I'll look in a photography store if Rogers suggestion doesn't pan out.

Thanks Roger, I'll do a test run with the downloadable chart. It looks to be fairly simple and, yes, that guy is telling you how to use their chart but the windbrookranch chart is supposed to be a very close match and one that anyone here who wants to compare colours can download for themselves.

The whole point of this is, as you may have guessed, to get a fairly accurate idea of the correct colour of the Mk IV at the AWM which should give a correct colour for the exterior of the plain khaki brown rhomboids. The only two catches as far as I can see are:
1) if the tank has been repainted since it's arrival in Australia (I've emailed the AWM and am waiting for a reply) and;
2) if the tank was originally the same colour as other MK IV's in service.

Once again, thanks for the suggestions.

Michael Taylor · Lieutenant-Colonel

There is also another way, at no cost, and that is to collect paint manufacturer's cards in the colur ranges you are most likely to need, and use the sample chips to get the closest match. These are produced to a good standard of accuracy, and are usually available at a paint stockist.

Mark Hansen · Legend

I received a reply from the AWM and it appears their Mk IV has been repainted except for some of the lower panels. Getting shots of the colour might be awkward but still worth the trip.

Thanks Michael, I hadn't thought of paint chips. I'll go grab some to take with me.

eugene · Field Marshal

There is a company that colorises wwi film, and when I saw a clip of a Mk.IV it was painted green, but I dont know if that company was basing this from "Books" or did they chemically analyse the black/white shade levels of the film in respect to colors.

Mark Hansen · Legend

eugene wrote:

There is a company that colorises wwi film, and when I saw a clip of a Mk.IV it was painted green, but I dont know if that company was basing this from "Books" or did they chemically analyse the black/white shade levels of the film in respect to colors.

I think in a lot of cases the colourisation is based on description rather than analysis. An example I posted in another thread was a BBC series showing colourised footage from WWI. One egregious mistake was a sequence showing Richthofen beside a Fokker Dr. 1. The team that colourised the footage coloured Richthofen's aircraft red overall despite the streaky green of the fuselage upper surface being clearly visible. To them, Richthofen = Red Baron = red aircraft = colour this aircraft red. He didn't always have an all red aircraft which even a small amount of basic research would have told them.

The problem with colourising footage or photos is that there are lots of variables that affect how colours will appear. Light at the time, fading, mud or dust amongst other things.