Hi Massimo,
I think that you are right, the two colors are probably similar, and I hope to be able to prove it.
So let us start a rather long digression...
Even if I believe that every modeller can paint his model with whatever color he likes, as long as he has fun, I have fun trying to analyse colors in a complex way.
So I decided to get a colorimeter, that is a rather pricey instrument used by the industry to assure color consistency.
To analyze some Akan colors I have used a ?Color Striker? produced by Mathai, which can measure color without touching the object, as it is also used to asses the color of female hair to produce wigs.
I will not dwell in the enormously complicated science of color, but I will enclose the briefest and clearest (for me) description of the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) L*a*b* coordinates, measured by my instrument, that I have found at the address:
http://www.briarpress.org/15154 .
It refers to how obtain Pantone colors but that is valid for other colors too.
?Along with matching visually, we use a spectrophotometer. This device reads and gives you Lab values. You can use the Pantone book as a reference and use the color that you are mixing (printed version) and scan that vs. the reference. This gives you the difference between the two colors.
For instance, if you have Lab values where your L (lightness) is high, your a value is high, and your b value is low, then you would want to look on the Lab image posted.
This will let you know what color to add, based on the Lab values you are getting. Like in the example I gave, if L is high then add black, if a is high then add green, and if b is low then add yellow. Hope this helps!?
So using a colorimeter will give you two advantages: the first is that the color is translated in numbers, and these numbers are forever and can be used for any comparison, the second is that if two colors are different, it will tell you how to correct them to make them identical.
Simplifying a lot, and stretching the numbers a little bit, we can say that: up to a Delta (difference) of 1, the two colors are identical, up to a Delta of two, they are very close, up to three, they are close, up to four, they are similar, up to five they are somehow similar, over five they are clearly different for most humans.
The two colors that I have measured are Akan 83042 and 73042, that are the enamel version and the acrylic version of A II G Blue.
As you can see from the first image, there is a small difference between the two, and essentially the acrylic version is lighter, and lacks a little bit of red and yellow.
I consider the enamel more accurate, so from now on I will take the measure of 83042 as standard, and its value is: CIE Lab: 59.95, -11.65, -5.32, or s RGB 115,151,152.
It was asked before in this tread how A II G compares with Luftwaffe RLM colors, and here it is, measuring the German colors from the samples in the latest book of Mr. Ullman ?Luftwaffe Colours 1935 - 1945?
As you can see, RLM 76 is completely off, with a difference of almost 10
Rlm 65 is only somehow similar, with a difference (Delta) of 4.37.
The best match is.... RLM 78! with a Delta of 2,46 it appears to be close, and it could be used ?as it is? or adding a little of yellow, and just a dash of green and white.
Of course this does not mean that Russians have used German tropical colors, or that Germans have copied Russian colors, but simply that the amount of shades and pigments to paint military planes in the last century was limited, so many colors are similar in different nations.
Another question is if there is a standard color that is similar to A II G as interpreted by Mr. Akan.
Unluckily there are no similar shades in the FS 595, according to the advanced tool in the site
www.e-paint.co.uk, but there are similar shades in the RAL Design color charts, with RAL 210 60 15 having a Delta of only 1,76
The problem is that buying a RAL Design color chart, that contains 1625 colors, is quite expensive, at 112,50 pounds each, and even buying a single color costs almost 10 pounds
Having made the study of Akan A II G complicated enough up to now, I will paint other paper labels with the Akan paints 8302 and 7302 for AMT 7 Blue, and post the results, assuming that there is somebody interested ?
Best regards
Daniele