Lifecolor IJN Paint set 1

[mikasa]

I'm planning on doing some 1/700 IJN ships and was interested in this set. On armor models I used Tamiya almost exclusively. But armor gets weathered over pretty good so getting paint shades that are roughly right is good enough. And, I never need to brush paint with Tamiya (which I've had a lot of difficulty with).

So I wanted something pretty accurate, that I could airbrush, and then touch-up with a brush when needed (as I'm sure I'll be doing that a lot on a 1/700 ship). I have some experience with lifecolor paints and like them pretty well. I have not figured out how to thin them down and remain good control through the airbrush reliably, but I keep trying. In general they go through the airbrush fine without clogging and producing a nice smooth finish. This set is no different in that regard. Some of the bottles need a tiny bit of thinning, but mostly they just run straight in the airbrush. None of them in my preliminary testing for color caused any issues.

I primed a piece of styrene sheet with alcad gray primer and after that was dry I sprayed strips of the paints so I could match them with my Snyder and Short color chips.

The Kure Arsenal gray is a good match with the S&S chip for the same.
The others did not match their intended target but two of them were pretty good matches.
I ended up using the middle shade of the Panzer Gray modulation sheet to get a good match for the S&S Sasebo gray paint chip.
The other two were pretty good but perhaps lacking a little blue tint in the shade. I found the Yokusuka shade from the Lifecolor set to be a pretty good match for the S&S Maizuru chip and the Sasebo gray from the Lifecolor set to be a pretty good match for the Yokosuka S&S chip. But I think both of those would be a little closer with a little more blue in the tint. I think they are close enough though that I'll be comfortable using them.