Each set comprises six colours and arrives in a neat cardboard pack with a slide-off sleeve. The sleeves feature photos of very nicely finished Bf 109 models by Girolamo LoRusso and Benedetto Iezzi respectively, and the backs include bi-lingual Italian/English instructions for painting and clean-up, plus a brief description of the colours included.
LifeColor include a QR code for a "How To" guide for airbrushing, but I think this might still be a work in progress because it took me to a "page not found" message in Italian.
The paints come in 22ml plastic pots with wide-brim screw tops that I find are ideal for stirring and decanting - and they keep the contents fresh for years if you make sure the caps are on tightly. Talking of stirring, the pigments do tend to settle and separate over time, so it is important to stir or shake them well before use.
The colours included are:
Set #1:
UA 501 RLM 70 Schwarzgrün
UA 502 RLM 71 Dunkelgrün
UA 503 RLM 65 Hellblau
UA 504 RLM 02 Grau
UA 505 RLM 79 Sandgelb II
UA 506 RLM 80 Olivgrün
Set #2:
UA 507 RLM 74 Graugrün
UA 508 RLM 75 Grauviolett
UA 509 RLM 76 Lichtblau
UA 510 RLM 81 Braunviolett
UA 511 RLM 82 Hellgrün
UA 512 RLM 78 Hellblau
LifeColor recommend thinning the paints for both brush-painting and airbrushing, but I applied them undiluted for the colour-matching samples and they went on smoothly with excellent opacity. For airbrushing I used LifeColor's own thinner and I found the paint sprayed very well with the pressure adjusted to avoid it drying to quickly on the needle tip.
When applied with a paintbrush the colours dried with a slight sheen, while the airbrush test dried dead flat.
A Question Of Colour
There's an old truism in modelling that quite often, while we all love absolute certainty, the more references we have, the more confusing things can become. This is certainly the case with WWII Luftwaffe colours, because many of the references are contradictory. I've collected quite a few over the years, including paint samples created by the manufacturers of the original RLM paints, and instead of all tallying, they are frequently quite different. It doesn't help that the manufacturers appear to have used different paint formulations to produce the original colours, so they never all matched - and this became even more apparent as materials grew scarce or decreased in quality in the final months of the war in Europe.
An eye-opener for me 30+ years ago was an official wartime colour photo of a Bf 109F (probably taken for Der Adler) that showed a patchwork of distinct colour variations on the underside - all nominally RLM 76. This didn't appear to be down to repainting in the field, so I assume it was pre-painted sub-assemblies from factories that sourced their paints from different manufacturers. Or perhaps the paint batches were inconsistent even at that early stage of the war? The rabbit-hole gets ever deeper...
(In case you think this was purely a Luftwaffe phenomenon, during my time volunteering at the RAF Museum, I encountered a myriad of variations of RAF Grey-Green on components and sub-assemblies in the interiors of exhibits that were apparently still in their original finish.)
So, all this is to say that I don't believe that there is just one verifiable reference that's true for every instance of Luftwaffe colours. However, there is a fair degree of consensus for best average values, and for this I think it's hard to beat Eagle Editions' Luftwaffe Colour Chart. The large colour chips were produced by an original wartime paint supplier to the Luftwaffe - Warnecke & Böhm - and if they were good enough for legendary Luftwaffe researcher, the late Jerry Crandall, they are certainly good enough for me.
Colour Comparisons
I brush-painted the LifeColor samples onto white card and compared them against the Eagle Editions colour chips in ambient light on a bright sunny day. As ever, I'll caution that the following photos are intended only to give an idea of the results, because factors such as the colour balance of my camera, the monitor I edited them on, and the screen on which you're viewing them all play a part.
UA 501 RLM 70 Schwarzgrün
UA 502 RLM 71 Dunkelgrün
UA 503 RLM 65 Hellblau
UA 504 RLM 02 Grau
UA 505 RLM 79 Sandgelb II
UA 506 RLM 80 Olivgrün
UA 507 RLM 74 Graugrün
UA 508 RLM 75 Grauviolett
UA 509 RLM 76 Lichtblau
UA 510 RLM 81 Braunviolett
UA 511 RLM 82 Hellgrün
UA 512 RLM 78 Hellblau
Suffice to say, I'm very impressed. LifeColor credit "Eagle Press" as their reference. Perhaps that means Eagle Editions, as the matches are certainly very close indeed and I'll be totally happy using LifeColor's paint for a build.
Conclusion
As with all LifeColor paints that I've used, the quality of these Luftwaffe colours is excellent and they deserve to be very popular. As I noted when I reviewed LifeColor's WWII Japanese Navy colors, despite being something of a dyed in the wool solvent-based paint user, the one brand of acrylics that's always worked well for me is LifeColor, as I just get on well with their paints where I struggle with many other popular brands.
My only suggestion in this instance - not really a criticism - is that I think LifeColor could have done even better by releasing two sets of eight colours instead of the current six. That way RLM 78 could have been kept with the other desert colours instead of being in Set 2 (ironically, the tropically-equipped Bf 109E shown on the cover of Set 1 maybe used RLM 78 included in Set 2). There would certainly be plenty of contenders to fill the extra spaces in eight-colour sets, such as the naval greens - RLM 72 and 73 - and more late-war colours like RLM 83, and the un-numbered Blaugrün that was often seen on undersides in the last stages of the war in Europe. Perhaps LifeColor could revisit and expand the sets at some point in the future.
I'm all set to start building Kotare's beautiful 1:32 Bf 109K-4 and I'll have no hesitation using these LifeColor sets throughout - in fact I've purchased a few extra colours to go with them and make it a LifeColor-only build. I'm really looking forward to it, so watch out for updates in the Forum and a Finished Build article.
Many thanks to The Airbrush Company for kindly providing the sample set for review.
Items #CS06 and CS07 - LifeColor Luftwaffe German WWII Sets 1 & 2 - are available now from The Airbrush Company - Price: £20.70 each
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