Model Color - Naval Steam Era Set

The color language of the steam colossi

The period between the 1860s and the end of the First World War changed the navies more than any other epoch. Wooden sailing ships were succeeded by armored batteries, after them came the pre-dreadnoughts and finally the dreadnoughts with a uniform main caliber. Alongside them the mail and ocean steamers plowed the sea, which set store by the representative livery of their shipping company.

This set holds sixteen bottles of seventeen milliliters each. They are acrylics thinnable with water, suited to being laid on with a brush, drying matte. The make-up is not random; it covers three zones that a builder of a ship model deals with at once:

• The zone below the waterline - the brick red shade points to the antifouling coatings with which the bottom was protected against growth.
• The sides and the superstructures - a dark gray, a light gray and a pale gray-blue match peacetime as well as austere wartime liveries.
• Fittings and signal items - a brass tone for bells, binnacles and railings, ocher and brown for wooden deck parts, a deep red, blue and green for flags and funnel markings.

The pigmentation takes thinning to a glaze, so from one shade you can draw a covering application as well as a fine bringing out of rivets. For fixing a layer before the next step any acrylic varnish suits, and none is in the package. The set will serve well for civilian steamers, tugs and harbor scenery too, where the same palette is repeated.