HMS-03 30 Minutes Sisters - Body Color C

HMS-03 Body Color C, the third body tone of the 30 Minutes Sisters line

The HMS range has eight items and three of them carry the designation Body Color in the name. HMS-03 is the last of those three. It is not aimed at the flank of a tank or at a wing but at small plastic figures, where the shade is compared against the surrounding unpainted parts over a few millimeters.

Where the shade shows

The 30 Minutes Sisters figures have their detail cut shallow: fingers, folds at the joints, the edges of the face part. A heavy coat floods those transitions and the figure goes limp. The shade therefore takes several thin passes better than one generous one, and it is sensible to start on a test part rather than on the face. It also pays to judge the tone match in daylight; under artificial lighting the difference between a molded and a painted part is estimated unreliably. It is worth laying the parts being compared side by side in the same position as well: a curved surface returns light differently from a flat one and the same tone looks noticeably darker on it.

Typical use

• repainting a whole body when the build is to hold a different tone from the one that came in the box
• matching a separately bought part to a body from another set
• repairing a spot where the surface was scuffed while the figure was taken apart
• hiding a sprue gate mark on a palm or a foot

Who it is for

For builders of 30MS who repose and combine their figures, and for modelers who like to fine-tune tonal transitions on small figures. It is not needed for a build made to the instructions; the paint starts to make sense with the first cut into the molded surface.