As was already mentioned, a new alternative to using the elusive vintage, old stock Brown Bess from Humbrol is in development by ArchiveX. They are a pillar of the Star Wars studio scale and prop community, Guy of ArchiveX has provided bang-on matched paints for all things Star Wars for ages.

Now Guy had the opportunity to produce matching paint (in enamel an acrylic varieties) from a tin of Humbrol BB, the old recipe that was used during ALIENS' production.
Lucky me was given a pre-production enamel paint sample of this awesome concoction by Guy himself:

https://archivexpaint.com/products/ex-0 ... e00b&_ss=r

Since I was in the process of re-doing my hero pulse rifle, I of course more than happily used this new product to paint my shrouds.


Went on like a charm, multiple thin coats did the job. Here are some pictures, I tried to replicate the impressive hue changing properties of ArchiveX BB with different lighting:

Is it brown? Is it olive drab? Is it grey? It's all of these things all in one - I was stunned by how different this looks in pics and differing surroundings.

Here she is, displayed in a windowless hallway with ceiling lamp light:


Same display spot, slightly different camera setting and BOOM - it changes into olive drab territory:


My living room lights make her look like this:


A picture showing three props with three different paintjobs. From left to right:
- ArchiveX BB hero PR, only slight weathering from handling
- Olive drab flame unit, "as seen on screen" (=RAL 7013)
- Vintage Humbrol Brown Bess Snow Wolf PR, heavy weathering (dark overspray, massive handling, chipping etc.)


And finally, I repainted these two shroud cover plates on the magazine well of the Snow Wolf rifle to show how well ArchiveX matches directly to the vintage Humbrol after some weathering like I have on the Humbrol coat - also showing the hue changes in differing light:

The Snow Wolf counter frame, left side of the frame is vintage Humbrol BB, right side is ArchiveX BB:

You can see that they are very, very close.

Guy from ArchiveX would now very much appreciate this community's feedback.
What do you guys and gals think - is he on the right track? I will give all your feedback directly to him.

AT this point I would say close is good enough especially since it is pretty much spot on and the part that is not close is negligible and not noticeable. As long as the behavior under different lighting is more or less the same this should be a suitable replacement.

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The impossible takes a while longer and goes over budget too...

Thanks for chiming in!
That's pretty much my sentiment also. The behavior of this paint in differing lighting situations is bang on. ArchiveX is striving for 100% and that's a good thing.

This paint should be available pretty soon, looking forward to other opinions and reviews!

I like it. Especially after trying to match BB on my Matrix PR. Ended up using Tamiya Khaki Drab acrylic with a drop or two of red brown. Prefer this though, no muss no fuss. Curious to see how it would react to different clear coats. I do a lot of scale models and that’s always a pucker moment- waiting to see how paints react to one another.

Ill be ordering some, this is awesome

I have yet to dare putting a clear coat on this. Might darken it some and put some satin sheen on the very matte finish. But I might go ahead and do it once I have more back up paint after it goes in full production.

After using this sample, I will order more myself. I have a lot of gear to repaint!

I have yet to dare putting a clear coat on this. Might darken it some and put some satin sheen on the very matte finish. But I might go ahead and do it once I have more back up paint after it goes in full production.[/quote]


Understandable given the rarity of this stuff so far. I did 2 coats of Testors dullcote lacquer with good results. A little satiny for my taste but not bad. I don’t recommend Tamiya flat clear. It’s too “hot” and I’ve had it suck paint right off a subject and have it run pretty bad.

Do we know when this will be available?

Harry

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http://www.facebook.com/TheHHACA - @TheHHACA

Enamel feb and acrylic in March. Edit*** hopefully **

Guy from ArchiveX is in the final process of approving production, so I'd say sooner than later.



= Yup, can back this up. The whole pandemic thing slows production down but it's moving along.

While I'm at it, here's finally some proper daylight photos of my rifles.

The heavily weathered top rifle is a Snow Wolf gifted to me by a good friend that I have since made a bit more accurate here and there, main draw is that it has been painted with real vintage enamel Humbrol BB.
The mag well plates and added detail on the rear shroud bracket (circled in red) have been painted with enamel ArchiveX BB, then weathered with a light black wash - that's all.
The black acrylic wash was also applied to the real Humbrol surrounding my repainted components and the paints match well.

The bottom hero rifle has the unweathered pure ArchiveX paint applied, it has been handled quite a bit since painting so has some nice dings and is buffed in places. This will get heavier and I might not have to apply a clear coat to achieve more "shine".

Here's the pics:




The unweathered ArchiveX pure paintjob:


The pics showing how well the weathered ArchiveX matches the weathered Humbrol:

I made a short review of the TRamp kit functions, the paintjob under artificial light is pretty visible in the video:

https://youtu.be/yplaoAuvdno

Ok both rifles are making me drool. Niiiiceeeeee

TRamp on FB reposted your video, wondered if that was you.

Yeah, Paul or TRamp is an all around great dude so he shared the short review. I was planning to make a more in -depth video about my hero rifle but thought this would suffice.

Wow, that is a cool upgrade ObiHahn!

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

Thanks my friend, you know it's as they say: a prop is never truly finished. Years later, a major update was in order!

Still fascinated by Brown Bess color shifts...
Here's my ArchiveX paintjob in dim light, main light source was my TV showing - what else - the movie ALIENS.



Gone is all the brown or reddish hue. Looks full on dark olive drab.

Well I'm sold on the archivex paint. How much would it take to airbrush the part on a pulse rifle replica? Would one 30ml bottle do it?