ATOM Javier López de Anca Selection

Ninety shades in one case

A collection of this extent is not for someone who builds one model a year. It is meant for builders who jump between periods and nationalities and do not want to wait for a single tone to be reordered every time. Ninety shades mean that the palette covers ground equipment, aviation and figures at once, and that the steps between neighboring tones are small enough for the fading of paint by the sun to be modeled as well.

The selection begins with white and light tones in two degrees of gloss, goes on through desert and sand shades and an extensive group of yellows from lemon to gold. Then follows a whole scale of rusts and browns, from light corrosion through earth and umber to black-brown, that is the group an armor builder uses up fastest.

Greens, blues and metals

The green part is the most numerous and deliberately mixes schools: German regulation shades, Japanese aircraft greens of the army and navy industries, chromate greens for interiors and light tones for undersurfaces. The blue and gray group covers naval aviation, postwar jets and the muted grays of present-day types.

The end belongs to the metals. Aluminum, steel, gunmetal gray, burnt iron, copper, brass and gold make up a complete range for bare metal surfaces and exhausts. A pair of translucent varnishes for Japanese aircraft glazing and interiors is not missing either. The case is closed by three auxiliary products: a thinner with a cleaner, its variant with a drying retarder and a product for the chipping technique.