I am at a game convention called Reapercon in Denton TX this weekend. The Company Reaper Miniatures produces some of the finest acrylic paints out there for gaming miniatures. Anyway, I got to talk to their President yesterday about their looking into producing paints for our hobby since they already have hundreds of colors available. He was very interested and is going to look into the matching of RR colors etc. These are incredibly good paints and it would be a huge boon for us.
With the withdrawal of Floquil, Testors, etc. from the MRR market there is certainly a good opportunity for another company to step in. Looking at the Reaper Miniatures website, I see they already have a wide variety of colors and at a reasonable price. As you seem to like working with these paints, I plan to give them a try. Have you tried them with an airbrush?
This is from Reaper Miniatures is interesting... https://www.reapermini.com/powerpalette "Upload your image, and through the magic of technology, see what Master Series Paints match your image. Perfect for figuring out the exact shade of green on someone's trousers or the blue of their hat. Give it a try!" I'm not sure this will solve the fistfights over "What is boxcar red?" but it could let anyone match whatever photo of a prototype car they have...
I uploaded this shot [Montgomery, AL 02/1989] as a sample and received the suggestions below. The tool breaks the image down to pixels, so it takes some user judgement to select what pixels best represent the color. It's an easy process and it assumes that your computer monitor is decently calibrated and that the image was taken in good light. All-in-all, a very very clever website feature!
I've been painting minis since they were made of lead, and the choice of colors and textures available is mind blowing. It's just a matter of matching the colors. There's one manufacturer, who's name currently escapes me, that is making sets of railroad colors. So far mostly European, but they've got a set for a Canadian RR - Via Rail I believe. Hopefully they'll expand into American railroads.
I started using Reaper paints several years ago. I love them, I do believe they are superior to Vallejo in quality. They airbrush beautifully, running through my ancient Paasche and my new Badger equally well. Clean up is easy too. As a follow up, I also got to talk to the CFO there about this. They are interested enough that they want me to try the sites that will allow them to get actual color chips so they can match them exactly. If anyone knows of these sites, let me know so I can send them to them. Evidently there is another fellow who was talking to them about producing miniature passenger and crews as well. They like the idea of the paint as they already produce their own already, so the only investment is in matching the colors needed, not cutting extremely expensive moulds.
One of the best resources, however not a single location, would be reaching out to the various railroad historical societies. Since minuteman shut down, Trucolor is basically the only game left in model paints
I've resorted to mixing my own colours from others that are close but it's a long slow process. I'm mixing paint to match off the shelf locos / cars which I regard to be pretty accurate. I have 2 Kato SD45's in SP grey and red which had completely different grey fuel tanks, bogies, hand rail, horns etc. I mixed some custom SP grey. In this situation an exact-ish match IS needed or it's just a step sideways. Next I need to paint a heap of PA's and E units to match my set of Kato Daylight passenger cars. The other BIG problem is decals to suit what you intend to paint. If there are no decals, then even if perfect colours of paint is easily available it would not be needed. A joint agreement between a decal manufacturer and paint supplier doing cross promotion would help. SP Daylight scheme decals are hard to come by. Microscale Daylight decals are out of stock. I am pretty sure I can mask the locos to paint both the red and orange but the lining is the problem. I might venture to get just the light grey lining and lettering decals custom printed.
No problem. This colour drove me a little crazy as I seemed to skip from lighter to darker and back again without getting it right. I had not realised the grey I was working with was a blue/grey ........ it never even seemed blue but it was. SP Lark Dark Grey is a green / grey believe it or not. (UP Harbour Mist Grey is a green / grey also). So I disassembled the loco. I left the Microtrains couplers attached to the lower frame. After removing the bogie frames from the trucks I washed them with dish washing liquid and rinsed clean very thoroughly. Check all parts for any oil and wash as necessary. I sprayed a very thin coat of AK Interactive Black Primer AK11242 on all the parts to be painted. I mean I juuuuuuusssst covered them and that's all. SP Lark Dark Grey 0.80 grams of AK Interactive Black AK11029 1.20 grams of AK Interactive Yellow AK11044 9.60 grams of AK Interactive Basalt Grey AK11021 I measured the paint in grams on a small cheap set of digital scales. I have a near complete video made for Youtube but I think you will get the idea how to mix it. It was the yellow that did the trick ....... the basalt grey is a very blue-ash colour but I didn't realise it .. maybe cause its sooooo dark. I thinned the mixture with AK Acrylic Thinner AK11500 at about 40% thinners and 35psi in the airbrush. I only needed a single coat as this AK paint seems to cover extremely well. ........ I put a coat of Micro-scale satin clear over the top once everything had dried. I've found Micro-scale clear gloss / satin / matt are pretty easy to get a very nice finish. I don't thin it down at all but I do crank the air pressure up to 45psi. !!! I'm trying to stick with Micro-scale clear coats because of the need to apply it before adding decals ........ Micro-scale clear on top of Micro-scale clear has just gotta work One last thing ...... if you buy any AK interactive paint put a strip of clear tape over the label , colour , serial number. If that brand has a fault it is that the printing on the labels is water soluble and can vanish at the worst moment unexpectedly.
If any software is analyzing the image directly, your monitor calibration won’t enter the picture - I would think not even video card rendering settings would enter into it. Plus, if you’re uploading it to Reaper Miniatures for analysis, the image is being analyzed on their machine, your computer isn’t in the chain. It should be analyzing the color values assigned within the image itself. The monitor calibration/quality affects only what is seen on the monitors. Of course the lighting and the camera (and the photographer) enter into it, because they define what constitutes the original image.
I was thinking that it might, as there are people on photography forums who consistently post photos with excessively vivid colors. I've just assumed that their monitor calibration is off, so that things look proper on their side, but weird on everyone else's. But, I think I understand what you are saying.
We still have Badger Modelflex unless I missed something somewhere. And Ammo by Mig Jimenez has introduced a line of paint and washes for American and European railroads called Rail Center. I personally have been using Model Air and Game Air from Vejello through my airbrush lately cross referencing colors from various charts found in the web.
These guys paint names are great. Uploaded an image. Where I would have used "Signal Red", they call "Clotted Red". I also liked the above Seaboard System "Vampire Skin" grey.
