Cobalt Blue/Faded Navy Blue

Cobalt Blue/Faded Navy Blue, an Abteilung 502 oil paint

This is an oil paint in a tube from the Abteilung 502 modeling range made by AK interactive. It is not an acrylic: the binder is oil, so the paint is thinned neither with water nor with acrylic thinner, but with mineral spirits, or with an odorless thinner intended for oils. The double name is deliberate: the first part names the pigment (cobalt blue), the second says what the shade is for on a model, that is fading dark blue finishes.

How the color behaves

It is a clean, cool blue with no green cast and with high tinting strength. Spread into a thin layer it stays translucent, so over a dark surface it acts not as an opaque coat but as a colored veil that shifts the tone of a whole area. That is exactly the strength of oils: slow drying gives you hours to blend the paint away to nothing, unify it and take part of it off again, until the result is right.

Where it is useful

• A filter over dark blue areas: a few dots blended with a clean soft brush unify the shade and take the flatness out of it.
• The oil dot technique combined with ocher and brown oils: irregular fading with no hard transitions.
• Cooling down a base coat that is too warm, without having to spray over it.
• Mixing with white or gray for your own tones of faded blue.

Who the paint is for

For modelers who have a finished base coat and are working on bringing it to life, on equipment and aircraft with dark blue schemes, on naval subjects and on dioramas. Oil forgives a beginner a great deal: as long as it has not dried, it can be wiped off with thinner and started again.

The paint is thinned with solvent-based products. Work in a ventilated space, protect your hands and allow for an oil layer taking hours to days to dry.