Oils Looking for RAF blue mixes

[John Bowery]

Planeteers,
I am in the process of doing Roy Hunts "The Few".
I wondered if any body has a good oil mix for WWII RAF blue for the pilot, with lights and shadow colours. I use w/n oils
Any help will be better than what I have which is zero.
I have added a pocket to the pants of the ground crew and will be doing him in Khaki to break up the colours.

Thanks for any help.
Cheers
John

 

[bwildfong]

Planeteers,
I wondered if any body has a good oil mix for WWII RAF blue for the pilot, with lights and shadow colours. I use w/n oils

Hi John,

What a coincidence - I`m just in the middle of doing one of Ultracast`s RAF/RCAF figures! I've used the following mix for the RAF blue battledress and all colours are W/N oils to boot!

I started my base by mixing Ivory Black + Titanium White to get a middle grey tone, then start gradually adding French Ultramarine until it looks close to my reference pictures. What I'm aiming for generally is a middling blue with a strong grey undertone.The black and grey help to tone down the intensity of the French Ultramarine - too much of it can make the uniform look a little too bright and toy-soldierish.

For shadows I added a little more Black + French Ultramarine to the base colour, with deep shadows from a straight Black + French Ultramarine mix. The few very deep shadows got straight Black.

For highlights I added progressive amounts of Titanium White to the basic middle blue base colour, occasionally refined with bits of Black and/or French Ultramarine to keep it from getting too chalky looking.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you get a mix that works better for you - always great to hear there's other old school oils guys out there!

Cheers,

Brian

 

[John Bowery]

Brian,
Wow, what a coincidence. That looks like a great mix to go with.
We can also see what else gets posted on this thread.
Good luck and show us the finished project.
Cheers
John

 

[bwildfong]

Brian,
Wow, what a coincidence. That looks like a great mix to go with.
We can also see what else gets posted on this thread.
Good luck and show us the finished project.
Cheers
John

Likewise !

Cheers,

Brian

 

[Einion]

That's one of the mixing routes I would have suggested.

For shadows I would add black or dark grey only. For the highlighting, white by itself might do it but you may find the tints a bit too bright in which case just add a dab of umber.

...

I've recommended this basic method previously (for Feldgrau for example) and it's useful for mixing many duller colours when starting with artists' paints - you mix for the correct hue or 'parent colour', then just add enough grey to get it dull enough.

Ideally you'd use neutral greys for this but a simple black + white mixture can work fine, although you'll need to tweak a little more often because the hue can shift a bit towards blue.

Einion

 

[John Bowery]

Thanks Einion.
John