Hobby color - RLM80 olivově zelená

Late Luftwaffe camouflage

The designation RLM 80 belongs to an olive-toned green introduced in the last years of the war. You will most often see it as irregular mottling on the sides of the fuselage and on the fins of late-version Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, as well as on Focke-Wulf machines and on some ground-attack aircraft, where it formed part of the move toward the darker and less conspicuous schemes of the end of the war.

What the bottle contains

Ten milliliters of modeling acrylic paint whose carrier is water. The range was created for spraying, but it does not rule the brush out. It is enough to mix in about a quarter share of retarder so that the bristle marks have time to flow together before the surface skins over.

• Apply the mottling with heavily thinned paint at low pressure
• For a smooth surface on the model, thin it with the maker's own product rather than with water
• A dry area can be flattened with the matting base from the same family of products
• A leveling thinner helps against drying in the nozzle

Anyone painting mottled camouflage for the first time will appreciate a test on a piece of scrap plastic. The right degree of thinning is hard to find. Thick paint creates a sharp edge that does not belong to a mottle, while thin paint runs under the shield and bleeds into an area that was meant to stay clean. Between the two extremes lies a narrow band in which the mottle keeps a soft transition.

Bringing out the panels

You can liven up a continuous area of this tone by mixing a drop of a lighter green into the paint and lightening the middle of the larger panels. The resulting difference should be barely perceptible; strong contrast looks unnatural on a model and draws attention away from the shape of the airframe.