ICM paint sets are tied to a single subject rather than to a general colour group. Each box is built around one aircraft, vehicle or theme: a bomber, trainers, armoured carriers, vehicle interiors from the 1930s and 1940s, civil helicopters or figures in period clothing.
What goes in the box follows what the real machine actually wore. How to get the most out of that narrow focus is covered below. The paragraphs below cover how to check a set against the kit instructions and which of these sets keep earning their place after the build they were made for.
Acrylic paints set for WWII British Royal Navy Aviation
10.76 €
Acrylic paints set for Wehrmacht Afrika Korps
10.76 €
Armed Forces of Ukraine Acrylic Paints Set
10.76 €
Acrylic paints set for WWII Military vehicles of Britain
10.76 €
WWII Aircraft armament acrylic paints set
7.96 €
Acrylic paint set for Civil Helicopters
10.76 €
A typical themed set gathers the shades of one army or one era. The scope here is narrower: the set is built around a single machine or a tightly defined group. From a modeller's point of view that has one decisive advantage. It removes the most tiresome part of the preparation, namely working out which shade the undersides carried, what colour the interior was and how the running gear was finished.
The flip side is that the range is less versatile. If you build a different type from the one the set was made for, part of the contents goes unused and ends up in a drawer. That is why these sets are best bought together with the kit they belong to, rather than stockpiled for an indefinite future.
Before you buy, run through the colour scheme in the kit instructions. You will see how many of the shades actually apply, and which tones you may still need to add separately from the model paints category.
The correct colour is half the work. The other half is light: lighten the centre of panels, darken the edges and then unify the surface. Without that, even a historically accurate finish looks flat and cold, like a painted piece of plastic.
Sets aimed at interiors and cockpits are the most versatile, because the same shades recur across types. They are worth owning even when you are not building the subject the set was created for, since cockpit and working-space tones changed little within one country and one period.
Further themed and general colour groups are listed in the model paint sets category.
