"FAA Fulmars and Albacore" Topic

I'm painting up some Fulmars and Albacore for use in the Med. I can't tell from the pictures I've seen (and I've been all over Wings Palette) what colors these planes should be. The best illustrations describe the colors as Extra Dark Slate Grey, Dark Sea Grey and Medium Grey. Does this sound right for all/most FAA aircraft, or did the colors depend on the theater they were in? Thanks!

Fulmers

wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/579/9/0#4

Albacores

wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/b/562/9/0#4

wings palette is a great source for colour profiles

:-)

Thanks. If you reread my post, though, you'll see that I looked at WP, but it's hard to tell from the renderings exactly what colors they should be, except that a couple of Albacore are described with specific colors. Some of them look like a blue, some look like a green, some look all grey – in this case, it's not really that helpful. That's why I'm asking those who know more than I if that is correct for all FAA aircraft or if it was theater dependent.

FAA didn't tend to vary by theatre – there was a distinct "Mediterranean" scheme very early on, but it was scrapped in 1940. Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey (note that's the other way around to your first post – extra dark is the sea grey, not the slate) was pretty much standard camo for everything except lend-lease aircraft. These colours were both replaced with the next lighter shade for the lower wings of biplanes, to compensate for being in shadow.

Underside colours did vary though – could be sky grey (most common early on), sky blue or sky (ie. the greeny grey colour most common from 1941.). Albacores could also have black undersides if intended for night ops.

OK, thanks, Dom. I've seen the Extra Dark Sea Grey rendered as a greenish grey, and as a straight grey – which would be correct?

I don't know if this is any help.
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Greg

The slate grey shades are the ones that are far more green than grey; the sea grey shades are flat greys, maybe even a little blueish. The aircraft at Yeovilton tend to be pretty well researched – certainly their apple core looks right to me:

Awesome! Thanks for the assist!

You're welcome.

Just looked at the Wings Palette, and noticed the color variations. One explanation for this is probably that some are photographed from books, which will distort the colors depending on the lighting and camera settings. For example, incandescent using daylight camera settings will add a yellow tinge, which will shift FAA colors to greens. Also some of the planes are labeled as being used from land bases.

Don't forget "scale color", which implies that the full-scale colors will need to be translated to something lighter and less saturated, when used on a small-scale model.

MH