“If you spend two weeks trying to convince yourself that something is correct, then it probably isn’t.”  I’m not sure if anyone has ever said that (if not, then (C) Devin Poore, 2012!) but it’s appropriate for my recent experience with the Viper.  I kept telling myself that the shade of red mentioned in the last post was fine, that I’d be able to tweak it with clear coats, glazes, and weathering, but the truth was that I just couldn’t take that next step to mask off and paint the rest of the stripes.

So I did some testing.  The two photos below are of a sheet of styrene that I used for swatches.  I made this up months ago to test paints for an X-Wing paint job (hence the scribing and added bits of styrene detail), but it worked well for this purpose.  I painted four shades of red on the test sheet, and compared them to photos online, and to what I think looks right.  The first photo is of all four stripes.  The second photo has the current red that I used on the left, and the new Insignia Red stripe on the right.  It’s not a huge difference, but it’s there: the Insignia Red is just a tad darker, and more importantly, it has more of a blue hue to it than the original color.  This is what I’ve sought.

I’ve started prepping the Viper for repainting (first photo in this post).  Fortunately this doesn’t require a stripping of any paint.  I wet-sanded the borders of the existing stripes so there is no raised buildup that will show after the new red is laid in.  I went over the chipped paint areas with more white, very thinned, very low airbrush pressure, to give me more wiggle-room when re-applying the salt chips.  I’ll let the white dry for most of the day, and then start the masking again.