I'm building Revell's PT-17 Stearman and looking to find the best match for the USAAF trainer blue. Tamiya's TS-23 Light Blue appears the closest, but needs a touch of darkening. The other blues are too dark.

If I prime the model in black or dark grey instead of white/grey, will that darken the TS-23 sufficiently?


(This is my first kit in several years and I don't have a functioning airbrush, so limited to Tamiya and other spray colors.)

The darker the primer the darker the top coat.

Try it out first and see what the results are like, use a plastic spoon as the test subject.

Clever. I like that.

Wish I could take credit but the plastic spoon idea came from the Ammo of Mig guy.

Apparently orange or red primer works best under yellow.

White makes it too pale and black is a B**** to cover with yellow.

Suggestion: prime with black to darken the blue, then mask for the yellow and re-prime with lite gray or dark red primer before laying down the yellow.

Or build in sub-assemblies, prime each one the color you need, final assembly, then mask and paint. If I have a question about how the paint looks on the kit, I test on the inside of the hull (I mainly build armor but have done this on cars, planes, spaceships) where it won't show after building.

All good tips.

Fortunately this scheme and kit lends itself well to subassemblies based on color. The wings and tail feathers are yellow and the fuselage is blue. There's some complexity with getting the blue into the right areas in the cockpit holes, but that's solvable.

So my current plan—subject to testing—is to prime the blue parts in black or dark grey, the yellow in primer grey, and the area under the tail striping decal white.

Sounds good man, post picts during the build and paint if you can.

Well...all this may be moot. Looks like TS-10 French Blue is a near-perfect match...





Will do.