So today was airbrush day!
I recently got an airbrush with compressor and finally got around to painting an aluminum sheet in the most readily available Brown Bess alternatives. I always wanted to paint my shrouds (and other Aliens props) in a paint that was readily available, since Humbrol Brown Bess seems to be pretty much impossible to find anyways in a useful quantity (and also doesn't have a reputation to be easy to work with).
Apparently, they didn't use Humbrol Brown Bess for the movie props but a "Braungrau" color from Germany. That seems sensible seeing that it most likely wouldn't have been feasible to get Humbrol Brown Bess in the desired quantity. However, Brown Bess
does seem to be the best match for the unknown original paint. So that's why I got the current best possible alternatives to compare them and spent the day airbrushing the following paints:
- SMS Blaster Brown
- ArchiveX Brown Bess
- Mig Jimenez Ammo AMIG0111 SCC 2 (British 1941-42 Service Drab)
- RAL 7013 ("Braungrau")
- RAL 6013 ("Gelboliv")
I was sure that I had a tin of Humbrol Brown Bess lying around, but it must have gotten lost when I moved a few years back... So I used the closest thing I had for comparison, my HCG aluminum shrouds ("Brown Bess" variant, which I have no idea how close they are to the real Brown Bess). If anyone has a tin of original Humbrol Brown Bess for sale for me to use in my comparison, I'll happily buy it! Also, I put the Snow Wolf (the "brown" version) next to it just for the heck of it.
Without further ado, here's the pics (Snow Wolf at the top, HCG aluminum shrouds at the bottom):
Natural lighting indoors:
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Sunlight outdoors:
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I'll try to snap a few pics next to the blue hue lamp tonight to see how the paints behave in "screen accurate" lighting.
As for now (at least for my naked eye, since the pics do not convey the tones perfectly), it seems that the ArchiveX Brown Bess is the closest match to the HCG shrouds, followed very closely by SMS Blaster Brown. SMS Blaster Brown is a dream to use in the airbrush. ArchiveX is much more of a chore, and before the paint finally dried completely, I actually thought that it was going to be a total mess because the texture wasn't anywhere as nice as SMS Blaster Brown.
Even now, I'm unsure if I'd not much rather go with the SMS Blaster Brown, since it does have a much more noticable brown/green effect and is really very nice to work with. To my eye, it seems to be almost as close as the ArchiveX in terms of color, maybe just a slight tint more green. I might try to sneak a drop of ArchiveX Brown Bess into it and see where that leads.
Cheers!
Roman