HMS Victory colors

D

Daedalus21

Joined
Sep 1, 2021
Messages
3
Points
3
I am working on a Sergal HMS Victory, and have reached the point where its time for some color. I have several books on the Victory which show a yellowish color used on the actual ship around the gunports and the stern and side gallery trims. Is there a paint that is the same color as the actual Victory (preferably measured in ounces not gallons!). The yellow paint sold by Model Expo is too bright and too yellow. Ages of Sail has a kit for their Caldercraft Victory, but no picture of the color (besides out of stock with no indication of when it will be in stock). Not in any big hurry to paint, but would like some help in determining the actual color to use on my model, and if not readily available how do I mix colors to achieve a reasonable look.
 
Hello, When I visited the Victory in Portsmouth and I was surprised to see the actual colors. I was building a C. Mamoli H.M.S. Victory at that time and I changed several colors before final assembly. The Yellow on the actual ship was more of a light tan or buff color. The spars and booms were black and not a natural wood as the kit lead me to believe. I think you could look up Portsmouth Shipyard on the internet and find some current photos of the Victory. The color is a striking feature of that ship so be sure you are happy with your pick.

Good Luck
Ragnar
 
I can see that picture of today’s Victory is a bit more orange. But I attest that in daylight it looks like the real today’s picture.
 
Last edited:
Almost every day, "science" is proven wrong, so I'll stay with yellow. To back the yellow version, there are contemporary paintings, by artists who saw her, as well as testimony from a crewman at Trafalgar in a letter home. He wrote "the French are just like ours, black with YELLOW stripes". I'll take his word over 21st century revision. (Painting by Turner, who "only painted what he saw")

il_fullxfull.3045530382_abcx-1579575463.jpg
 
Hello Again, I though I would attach a photo from my trip to Portsmouth. Not professing to be an expert on all things "Victory" but as I said in my post I was surprised to see the colors.P1030620.JPG
 
ENJAY49 said:
I'll stay with yellow
Click to expand...
Me too, that dirty pink turns a striking ship into a background piece. It seems to me that nothing ever stood still ship-wise, and yellow ochre was evidently the true colour for some of the time, and that’ll do for me.

I use Vallejo yellow ochre as I mostly only use Vallejo paints, but there never seems to be any material difference across brands and media, as I have various brands of acrylic tubes that yield the same hue. You can give it a bit more depth by washing with a dark brown artists ink, or (probably) just about any other wash medium that takes your fancy. You’ll see the un-inked ochre colour on my log, link below.

I should mention Admiralty Paints, which I think are sold by Cornwall Model Boats. They do a set of Victory colours. I have these from more than a decade ago and the YO had quite a nice, deep tone to it.
 
Daedalus21 said:
I am working on a Sergal HMS Victory, and have reached the point where its time for some color. I have several books on the Victory which show a yellowish color used on the actual ship around the gunports and the stern and side gallery trims. Is there a paint that is the same color as the actual Victory (preferably measured in ounces not gallons!). The yellow paint sold by Model Expo is too bright and too yellow. Ages of Sail has a kit for their Caldercraft Victory, but no picture of the color (besides out of stock with no indication of when it will be in stock). Not in any big hurry to paint, but would like some help in determining the actual color to use on my model, and if not readily available how do I mix colors to achieve a reasonable look.
Click to expand...
Kevin the Lubber said:
Me too, that dirty pink turns a striking ship into a background piece. It seems to me that nothing ever stood still ship-wise, and yellow ochre was evidently the true colour for some of the time, and that’ll do for me.

I use Vallejo yellow ochre as I mostly only use Vallejo paints, but there never seems to be any material difference across brands and media, as I have various brands of acrylic tubes that yield the same hue. You can give it a bit more depth by washing with a dark brown artists ink, or (probably) just about any other wash medium that takes your fancy. You’ll see the un-inked ochre colour on my log, link below.

I should mention Admiralty Paints, which I think are sold by Cornwall Model Boats. They do a set of Victory colours. I have these from more than a decade ago and the YO had quite a nice, deep tone to it.
Click to expand...
As far as I know nobody has done this colour. However I have the codes to mix these colours which I had done at an automotive paint supplier. This information comes from Andrew Baines the current curator of Victory in Portsmouth.

The colour is Victory Hull Ochre.

NCS S 3020-Y40R

For other reference the Hull Black is :

NCS S 8500-N
 
Bonjour,
Il a été peint déjà un peu de la couleur actuelle comme sur cette photo que j'avais prise lors d'une de mes visites en 1989...par la suite, la couleur a été de nouveau ocre jaune....alors qui sait, peut-être changera de nouveauimg430-edit-20230218100646.jpg
 
@andy said:
For other reference the Hull Black is :

NCS S 8500-N
Click to expand...
So, a lighter shade of black, and quite a nice shade to boot! This brings to mind something I’ve picked up recently from a couple of very talented people on the forums. The first, Bruma, has a stunning Cutty sark build on here, from whom I’ve learned to not use standard acrylic black, but something more ‘off-black’. I hadn’t even realised that there are umpteen shades of black out there! That led to me using Vallejo Nato black on my own CS, which allows better viewing of the detail. The second lesson was from a chap called John Ott, who recently completed a magnificent build of the Soleil Royale over on MSW. This really is a work of art. Instead of black, he uses van dyke brown to great effect. I haven’t tried this yet but as I’m close to painting a revised remake of the victory stern, I have it in mind to give that a whirl, perhaps mixing with a bit of black.

I think one of the side benefits of this approach is that it frees up pure black as a tool to hide stuff. To paraphrase John, if you don’t want people to look at it, paint it black!
 
A number of years ago the Nautical Research Journal published a very interesting about historic paint colors by master ship modeler and maritime historic Eric Ronnberg. The article includes paint color chips. An abridged version of the article is included in Volume 2 of the Guild’s shop notes. In the article Ronnberg also discusses “scaling down.” colors.

Keep in mind, that premixed colors were not available in 1805 and pigments were from natural minerals. Colors could vary widely.

Roger
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top