69.021 Dark Blue Matt

A clean dark blue with no shift toward violet

The number 69.021 marks the classic deep blue in the Mecha Color palette, one that stays unambiguously blue even under a matte finish. Next to the related deeper tone it looks cooler and more technical, so it suits the hulls of machines, skin panels and color accents around cockpits. It is one of the shades modelers take as the starting point of a whole blue scheme.

Working with the coats

It takes both an airbrush and a brush. When spraying, a very light veil in several passes is enough to keep the edges and the rivets visible; when applying it by hand, thinning it with a drop of water and working in thin strokes works well. A dried coat has a velvety matte look into which washes and fine pigments soak nicely.

• A blue with no shift toward violet, suitable as the basic tone of a scheme
• A water-thinnable binder, resistant to rubbing from hands once dry
• The dropper cap limits the paint drying in the neck of the bottle
• Mixable with the brand's other acrylic lines without the pigment curdling
• A matte ground increases the effect of later picking out of the panel lines

Mixing the shades around it

Adding white or light gray creates a band for lightening the upper surfaces, while a drop of black shifts the tone into a night shade suited to the undersides of hulls. Modelers also often mix a transition to turquoise out of this blue when they need to tie two neighboring color fields on one machine together. The paint goes well with acrylic-based thinners and has no tendency to form grains.