UA136 - Blu Aotake

The blue-green Blu Aotake

Shadows are the most frequently underrated part of a diorama. Paint them only with a darker brown and you get an area that is dark but dead. Blu Aotake from the Italian maker Lifecolor is a blue-green shade whose name comes from the Japanese term for the color of bamboo, and in terrain work it serves exactly to give a shadow color rather than just darkness.

A cool tone in the depths of terrain

In nature a shadow is not simply a darker version of the area around it: reflected light from the sky falls into it, and that is why it shifts toward blue. Add a blue-green tone to the lower part of a rock outcrop, under a stone overhang, on the bottom of a ditch or between densely growing vegetation, and the depth of the scene increases without any further darkening. On damp stone by water and on the bottom of a dried-out puddle the shade works as a reminder that water was there or still is.

Where it proves itself

• A cool cast to shadows in rock, terrain breaks and ditches
• Damp stone on a bank and in a stream bed
• The bottom of puddles and muddy hollows under the water surface of a scene
• A blue-green cast on wood that stands in water for a long time
• Bringing color to shadows that otherwise read only as a dark area

Who the color will serve

Modelers who build a diorama with an eye to light and to the color of shadows, and everyone working with water features: a stream, a ford, a muddy road after rain.

Keep out of the reach of children and work in a well-ventilated room.