A Paint Mixing Odyssey
Hello friends.
A word about my novel.
Those of you who are waiting with baited breath had better stop that behavior or you’ll surely turn blue and die. The next chapter is coming but it’s slow. Take a break. Go have a cigarette or something. Come back in a few weeks and we’ll have a complete picture of the how Marc and Lindsay and Jupiter survive their adventure and go on to other things.
I’ve always wanted to write a story about “happily ever after.” That’s a good title. I’d like to explore that would actually happen to someone who lived “happily ever after.” I’ll have to work on that. All my legion of fans will have a reason to live now.
Let’s talk about paint mixing. When Testors bought Floquil (or whatever) then Polly Scale, which had been “dead on” colors with no exception, began to “get weird.” The colors were no longer dependable. I’m not saying that Testors did this deliberately in order to feed off the collective sorrow from millions (thousands?) of broken-hearted model builders, but, well, you be the judge.
Polly Scale RAF Dark Earth, once the world standard, because green and almost turned into Dark Green. Ish. RLM 79 became yellow and almost turned into RAF Middle Stone. Nightmare. I finally had to admit to myself that these colors could not be relied upon. I gathered up the last of the “good” paint and mixed my own copies of the original paints. That’s what I’m using now– paints mixed using Testors “primary colors” from their fantasy line (defunct, even then) and some other Testors paints that were “close but no cigar.”
Still, I struggle to get some colors “right.” RAF DarK Earth is a particular sore spot. You can get CLOSE but you can’t get it RIGHT. That takes fairy dust from Merlin, and only a few people know how to get that.
But I digress.
Right now, I face a clear choice. I can make up my mind to buy Hataka Blue paints in “pre-mixed” colors or I can “mix my own” using Golden So Flat.
I’ve decided to go with the Golden So Flat. Hataka Blue Line is the way to go if you can’t or won’t mix paint. I can respect that. It’s not your bag. That’s cool. But I’m determined to learn to mix. So I go with the superior, made in USA product that offers me nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat, and perfect color matches IF I can make them.
So off we go on this adventure.
I realize, with some trepidation, that this will cast me even FURTHER out to sea. I’m already a weirdo. This will ice the cake. Not only does he eschew the sacred airbrush of our fathers, he MIXES HIS OWN COLORS!!
Now all I need is a shack in the desert near Taos, covered in old hubcaps and gas station signs, to find my true niche in the world.
Tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds and Golden So Flat. “Earl!” (speaking to black lab, retired porn-sniffing dog) “Bring me an O’Doul’s!”