Located in an unfashionable arcade five minutes walk from Snow Hill station in Birmingham, Element Games is part of a chain, catering for wargamers.
It's home to the largest selection of model paints I have ever seen in one room. You won't find Humbrol or Revell, but pretty much everything else is there. Loads of brands I've never heard of, and quite a few I have, but consider them "advanced".
My problem was that I'm working on a GWR station, and needed some light stone, dark stone etc. The book stays use Precision Paints, but the web says there's no chance to buy the full set of colours.
Anyway, I wander in with my book, hoping to pick up some alternatives. An assistant asks if he can help, then proceeds to spend 15 minutes working around the various ranges, looking for the best colour match. I've got five acrylic colours, from four different makers - full details will be in the article.
I was especially impressed when he said there was one range he wasn't selecting from, as he'd never used that paint. That says he's using the products from the store, and has some knowledge of them, always a good thing.
So, there aren't any toy trains, and the small number of plastic kits are properly weird, but for paint and other modelling materials and tools, I'd certainly recommend this place. Best of all, according to their website, they have stores all over the country. The next one to open is in Covent Garden, so someone has a budget...
Looking forward to finding what the paint matches are.
ReplyDeleteIt is always complicate by how the colours aged in real life as well. Preserved railways aren't always a reliable guide, either.
I've used Peter Smith's "Station Colours" book as a guide. Don't make me get a copy of "Scale Colours" out...
DeleteI feel that railway modellers are more relaxed about precise colour matches than plastic aircraft kit modellers, although perhaps it was more of a thing 50 years ago? (For example, there are documented standards for 1950s BR Freight Brown and Freight Grey, but aerosol primers are a convenient substitute — and they can be difficult to detect after a heavy application of “weathering”! Whereas aircraft tend to be kept much cleaner. Railway modellers have it easy.)
ReplyDeleteThere might be a (limited) demand for modeller’s colour swatches for paint matching, but making them is not likely to be cost-effective? And no doubt there would be other people out there ready to criticise and denounce them! Which is probably why they don’t exist…
This is why it was interesting to visit a shop with such a vast range of colours. I'm not that picky, and I appreciate that on the real thing the colour fades and gets dirty, so the "official" match may not be appropriate. This sort of store needs to be investigated by railway people. Take the blinkers off, and a photo with you to match colours, and give them a go.
DeleteThere's an Android App called "Hobby Color Converter" that allows you to find matches between different paint brands - including Humbrol and British Standard colours. It will also allow you to colour match to a particular colour selected from the phone's camera. Having tried it with olive green it's far from perfect, but it certainly cuts down the choices.
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