robgrainger78@sky.com

Good morning. I am new to this forum so thankyou for accepting me into what looks like a very friendly and informative site. I am currently building my second ship, the Russian Brig Mercury by Amati, my first ever ship being the HM Granado from Caldercraft. So far I am quite impressed by the quality of the kit. My only two gripes compared to the Caldercraft being that there are virtually no 'spare' parts and the strip wood is actually short of being enough and secondly the instructions, while fairly decent are nowhere near as detailed as Caldercrafts and omit several points which they just expect you to know. This is all very well and good though since having done the Caldercraft first I have built up enough experience to be able to fill in the gaps for myself. (I certainly wouldn't recommend as a first build though!) One question I cant seem to be able to answer is what colours to use in painting this model. Particularly the specific shades of yellow and green used. This is obviously quite an uncommon kit as I haven't found a complete build log of the ship anywhere as yet, but it was the uniqueness and my interest in Russian history that attracted me to this boat in the first place. I obviously have a nice set of admiralty paints from building Granado but there is clearly no overlap between Nelson's navy colours and 19th century Russian military colours. The admiralty yellow ochre for example is nothing like the lightness of the shade pictured on the Mercury box. The instructions are also very unhelpful in this regard stating simply that the inner bulwarks for example should be painted 'green' lol! So has anyone who has built this model, or in the process of building it got any ideas for these two main colours? I've looked at many colour swatches from lots of different paint manufacturers and cant seem to find anything close for either the yellow or green. I'm thinking I may have to mix up my own colours from what I have but as a relative newbie to the hobby I'm not even sure if this is a good idea. Should I do this? I Look forward to hearing anyone's opinions on this issue and appreciate you taking the time to read my first post. Thanks Rob