[WWI] "Scale Effect"

[Robert Karr]

my two cents........I've mentioned this before, going back years.........:
I shot a photo of a B-52 at an airshow many years ago- it was painted in 
various greens. I also reached up and pulled a chip of this very same 
airplane- and up close it appeared black. If you had a bottle of this stuff 
for model use and it was labled "black" you wouldn't complain. But step 10 
feet away and it was apparent that this was one of the green shades.
If you had barrels of genuine Fokker streaky green, Brit PC 10 and the 
various French colors and put 'em on a model, the model would be a little 
dark blob.
Yeah, there's alot more to scale effect than merely adding white. There's 
graying out with the complimentary color added to your white. There's 
fooling the eye by making the local color a tad darker to begin with. Some 
color families are more adaptable to lightening than others.Other things to 
consider are surface texture- blue on fabric is going to reflect light 
differently than the same shade of blue would on, say, metal cowl panels.
It's the kind of crap 2D folks deal with all the time- aerial perspective 
and surface texture.
One way to avoid all this is to build boxed lighted dioramas- then you can 
control the light.
Now I know most of us build for personal enjoyment, and most of us try for 
some sort of accuracy, so whatever you're doing, keep doing if you're happy. 
For me there is no enjoyment without tweeking the effect of light on a 
miniature doodad.
Robert Karr
www.karrart.com
blog dealy:
http://karrart.com/WordPress/?cat=4