Hobby color - RLM81 hnědo fialová

The color of the last months of the war

The last major change of the German camouflage system came in 1944, when tones numbered 81 to 83 began to be applied to the upper surfaces. Braunviolett, meaning brown violet, appeared on Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9s, on Messerschmitt Bf 109 Ks, on the jet-powered Me 262 and on the reconnaissance Ar 234. Because production was breaking down, the tone differed between deliveries: some batches leaned toward olive, others were distinctly chocolate.

How to work with the paint

The binder is water-thinnable, the surface stays semi-gloss once dry, and the bottle holds 10 ml. Thinning with water makes sense on absorbent surfaces, while on bare plastic a thinner made for this brand works better - the paint then flows better and the nozzle does not clog during the work. Extreme thinning does not pay off, as the film loses its covering power.

Practical advice on the shade

Since the period samples differed from one another, there is no point in looking for one single correct tone. It does pay, however, to spray the whole model from one stirred batch, so that the transitions between panels do not diverge. It is a good idea to even the undercoat out beforehand with a spray putty. Anyone working with a brush should add about a quarter of the volume of retarder to the paint, or the strokes will dry before they have time to level out.

Recommended combinations

• With the olive and the light green from the same late trio on the spine and the wings
• With a pale underside color, often applied carelessly on late-war machines
• With bare metal areas where the paint was missing altogether

On late production it pays to leave some of the panels deliberately imperfect. Uneven coverage is documented on these machines and it does the model more good than a carefully uniform surface.