- after the Ejection Site's photo
www.ejectionsite.com/texans/mkf7down.jpg . NOT dimensionally accurate, but pretty to look at and complete enough to give context to the colors. Still missing the head-rest cushion completely. Goes between the face curtain handles and the parachute top.
By the numbers:
Metal structure: dogue chute box, the seat beam, ejection gun inside the beam, pan behind the parachute, and the seat sides and bottom. Black, Flat or Satin finish. Keep it simple? any vendor, 37038 flat black, 27038 Semi-gloss black
A variety of off-blacks: Polly Scale or Model Master Acryl:
Aircraft Interior Black FS 37031
Schwartzgrau RLM 66
Grimy Black, Engine Black, dark grays for highlights, thinned black over aluminum.
Top pull loops: Yellow with black spiral wrap. Bar that joins them, glossy red.
Parachute Container Polly Scale British Brown Drab, PC-10. Model Master RLM 2 Grau is a useful 'lightened' version
Cloth cover over Parachute Polly Scale British interior Gray Green, 34226. Wrinkle texture, Model Master Acryl WarPac Gray Green, 34258, tints and tones of Interior Gray Green (mix w/white, black)
Upper Parachute webbing: warm gray, Polly Scale 37322 Israeli Early Lt Gray, Model Master Sand 33531 or Armor Sand 30277
Lower parachute harness, seat belt, 36622 camouflage gray/TAC Light Gray, 36495 Light Gray. Buckles and metal bits, 36375 Light Ghost Gray
Seat back padding/cushions. Seat bottom cushion: - sheets of thin foam plastic like Thinsulite? Thicker lumbar cushion. Maybe in flame-retardant cloth covers. Flat, dark gray or off black, sometimes olive drab/brown/green/dark gold as shown.
Survival Kit, under seat bottom cushion, Polly Scale British Interior Gray Green overall, Polly Scale Medium Green (AN 602) or 34102 for worn edges
10/8/12 upgraded image again. Much smoother and more uniform. Various geometric holidays and lack of forethought now corrected. Seat bottom cushion color isn't right but just that one golden brown bit. everything else is a fair representation. Plenty of opportunity for improvement, but you get to see what my color matches produce using commercially available colors.
In particular, the two black, back, cushions, and the golden-brown one on the base of the seat are sometimes seen with reversed colors - black seat bottom, brown/olive drab back cushions.
Most interesting and clever, to least:
The fiberglass parachute container is Poly Scale British Brown Drab, PC-10. Model Master RLM 2 Grau is a useful 'lightened' version. The actual part is a peculiar shade and the Brown Drab is s good match - maybe that's what they had in mind?
The cloth cover over the top of the parachute is one of those shiny, part or all-synthetic fabrics that aircrew jackets and jump suits and anti-G suits, etc, are made from. The basic color is Polly Scale British interior Gray Green. Since its a protective cover, without padding or quilting, it makes a very irregular surface over the parachute, so I use little stripes of Model Master WarPac Gray Green, which is noticably more yellow, as well as tints and tones of Interior Gray Green mixed with a little white or a little black, to try to show what the highlights and shadows look like. I'm afraid the effect is something like "tiger" pattern combat uniforms but how this looks and how the real thing look are not that far apart. IMHO.
Testor's color samples on their web site are big, rounded, flattened shapes, like huge paint drops. A certain amount of the color is shown "Shaded" in the upper left, a certain amount shown "Lightened" in two fake reflections on lower left and the curve of the outside edge of the lower right. So the two blobs of paint, top right on this drawing, are PS Br. Interior Gray Green at top, MM WarPac Gray Green lower down. In each case, the top color is the basic nothin' fancy, the middle band is lightened and the lower band is darkened.
The case of the survival kit, under the seat bottom cushion, is painted PS British Interior Gray Green overall, but the paint wears around the edges of the (plastic?) box, exposing a glossy green which is either a tougher finish or perhaps the color of the plastic material. Polly Scale Medium Green (AN 602) or 34102 or other contemporary Medium Green are a good choce. i
A variety of off-blacks for the drogue chute box, the beam, shroud behind the parachute, and the seat pan itself. Satin finish - no gloss, but black anodize looks close
Two further off-blacks for the fabric-texture black back cushion (the tall one) and the thicker lumbar cushion. The Mk H7 for US Navy F-4 Phantoms has a shaped lumbar support, the Mk-F7 seat for the Navy's F-8 Crusaders had flat cushions. Model Master and Polly Scale have produced a variety of near-blacks - semi-gloss black, Grimy Black, RLM 66 Black, Airframe Interior Black. I use all of those but also mix some of my own- "Grimy Black" seems too light to me- a dark gray, not 'black'
8/15/12: FINALLY fix the seat bottom cushion color to an actual golden brown. The Paintbrush "palate" option helped here, I gave it the photo I am using as a reference and and I clicked around on it to get the four top rows of discrete colors parked behind at the back of the seat-pan - its brown unless its green: Sounds like Olive Drab to me... I thought I'd make a 'normal', 'light' and 'dark' set like the red and gray green and WarPac green gray at the bottom, but there turned out to he a fourth, 'really dark' tone. That's the top row. 'Dark' is the second row, four slightly different colors with no divisions, then 'light" below that, two basic blobs, neither very green. Finally, 'normal'. The pretty green at the fifth row down was just an attractive color in the reference photo. Something like the 34127 Jungle Green used for 1950s and 60s military uniforms.
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