LC11 - Light Green Matt

Lifecolor Light Green Matt

Judging a shade by the lid of the bottle or by a color chart is the commonest mistake made when building a model. Light Green Matt is a matte acrylic paint from the Lifecolor brand, and unlike most of its neighbors in the range it carries no color standard number in the name. The deciding guide here is therefore the eye itself — and that is a guide which scale influences considerably.

Why a sample never matches the model

You judge a sample up close, on a flat surface, usually beside other samples and under the light you happen to be standing in. A model is judged from a greater distance, on a curved and broken surface, surrounded by other colors and under the light of a display case. Each of these variables shifts the tone, and the smaller the scale, the more strongly it shows. A light green is particularly sensitive to this, because it lies between a warm yellow and a cool blue-green and it takes little for it to seem to lean one way or the other. There is only one reliable procedure: lay the shade on a test piece, let it dry, stand it beside the parts of the model that are already finished in the same scale and look at it from a distance under the light the model will end up in. A decision made that way holds; a decision made from a color chart often turns out wrong only on the finished model.

How to work with it

• A matte light green; the name gives no color standard number.
• Judge the shade on a test piece, not from a color chart or the lid.
• Judge the test piece beside parts of the model already finished in the same scale.
• Judge it under the light the model will be displayed in, and from roughly a meter away.
• A light green leans easily toward the warm or the cool side according to the neighboring colors.

Who it is for

For modelers of military vehicles, aircraft and dioramas who need a light green tone for their palette and want to check it with their own eye rather than by a number.

Keep out of the reach of children. When spraying, work in a well-ventilated space.