ATOM US Army Helicopters Set

Helicopters and muted military tones

A military rotary-wing machine is painted by a different logic than an airplane. It has no gloss surfaces that would have to be protected, but it does have a huge proportion of rounded parts, on which every difference in shade shows up at once. That is why entirely matte, deeply muted tones are reached for so often with them, tones that level the shape out rather than break it up. Helicopters also fly low, so their surface gets dirty from the ground and from exhaust gases considerably faster than on jet types.

This set offers four shades from exactly such a range. The dark olive green is the classic covering tone of ground and helicopter equipment of the second half of the twentieth century. Beside it stands a richer green of the kind carried by ground equipment of Eastern design, that is a noticeably cooler and less brown shade.

Gray, black and what to do with them

The third tone is a light desert gray of the Middle Eastern type, usable on machines operating in a dry and dusty environment. The fourth item is a deep matte black, which on rotary-wing machines is far from being a mere extra: it covers the non-slip walkways, the exhaust stacks, the rotor blades and a host of small covers.

The shades are fully matte and are applied with a brush and with an airbrush alike. It is precisely on matte surfaces that it pays to give attention to an even coat, because a matte film reveals every transition that a gloss surface would hide. Before spraying it pays to give the surface a primer, on which the matte film takes hold more evenly than on bare plastic.