Acrysion - racčí šedá

The gray from the decks of aircraft carriers

Gull gray is a byword mainly among modelers of naval aviation. This light gray, shifted toward a warmer tone, covered the upper surfaces of carrier aircraft in the post-war decades, while the undersides stayed white. The shade is therefore the first choice for fighters and attack aircraft of the 1950s to the 1970s, but it also serves on equipment, on the light parts of a ship superstructure or as a neutral gray on accessories in a scene, where a purely cold gray would look dead.

It atomizes well even when heavily thinned, which comes in handy with schemes where the dividing line runs from the spine down the sides through gradual lightening. Lay the first pass over the whole area, aim the second at the centers of the panels and leave the edges a little darker; the surface then no longer looks like a plastic sheet painted in one color. The bottle has to be stirred, because light grays contain a lot of white pigment, which settles at the bottom.

Care and the steps that follow

Water is enough both for thinning and for rinsing the airbrush straight away. Once the film has hardened, it will take sets of national markings and the subsequent accenting of panel lines. If you plan oil-based washes, let the surface cure thoroughly first and protect it with a gloss interlayer; direct contact between the solvent and fresh acrylic can blur the shade and set the work back a step. The same care applies to masking tape: the adhesive will pull away from a fresh surface together with the paint, whereas after sufficient curing you will lift the tape off without a single scratch. A final coat of varnish then unifies the whole surface.