Acrysion - RLM79 písková

The desert sand shade RLM 79

When the fighting moved to North Africa, German machines were given camouflage to match the desert. A sand tone covered the upper surfaces, the underside stayed in a light blue and green patches were sprayed over the sand in places. That is how the Bf 109 fighters in tropical fit, the Ju 87 dive bombers, the twin-engined Bf 110 and the He 111 bombers looked over Libya, Tunisia and the Mediterranean between 1941 and 1943.

The shade also suits the ground hardware of the same theater and the equipment that lay about around machines in the desert: crates, jerrycans, tarpaulins and engine covers. A model with figures benefits when exactly these small items keep to the same color family as the aircraft.

Working with a desert tone

Sand never looks the same in photographs from Africa. Faded machines have the tone shifted into yellow, freshly sprayed ones into pink, and that is why it pays to mix two slight variations and to interleave the surface with them.

The medium is thinned with water and has to be stirred before it is drawn out, otherwise a thick pigment stays at the bottom. Dust is part of the real subject with this camouflage: it settled on horizontal surfaces, at the wing root and around the landing gear. It is created by applying a very thin mix of a lighter tone from above downwards and it works better than dry pigment tipped on all at once.

On models in 1:72 scale it is recommended to lighten the sand tone a little. A smaller area perceives a color as darker than it really is, and a shade that looks exact on a large model reads as too brown on a small one. The difference need only be slight, and adding a little lighter paint usually settles the whole impression.