Colourcoats and Model Paint Conversion Apps

We have become aware that Colourcoats model paint products are included on at least two model paint conversion or comparison applications used on smart phones, tablets and possibly desk top devices.

Whilst we understand the appeal of these applications, we have been alarmed to see truly terrible representations of our paints which in some cases show wild differences to the target standards.

Sovereign Hobbies Ltd has never consented to our brand, style, logo, intellectual property or products appearing on any of these applications. None of the rendered colours for our products on these applications are approved by us. We are now aware of one application using our brand and website images without our consent, and another which has wildly incorrect RGB coordinates representing our carefully crafted products.

We are both deeply dismayed by how shockingly bad one of these popular apps makes our product appear due to the egregious errors in their product representing ours, as well as the fact that these applications which are not run by organisations which buy the products, produce dried samples at nominal film thickness and determine RBG coordinates derived from spectrophotometer analysis but instead by people who either guess at colour coordinates or rip from websites.

It is imperative to understand that the RGB colourspace used to illuminate screen pixels can be mathematically converted back and forth with other colourspace models used in industry making physical colour products e.g. paint. However, the conversion is a consistent approximation. RGB as a system really struggles particularly at portraying dark colours and even light colours look odd most of the time. This is because real paints by and large remain reflective even when the colour is identified as black or absorbent of light when we call the colour white. A real life white or black paint measured by spectrophotometer and converted to RGB colour space will never show 0, 0, 0 or 255, 255, 255, yet our device monitors frequently are configured to do just that for backgrounds. Real life coordinates for white paint look light grey against a mobile phone white screen background, and similarly real coordinates for black paint look dark grey against a device screen black background. To make some colours look more recognisable and familiar to consumers, some model paint companies choose to alter the RGB coordinates of some products to enhance the appearance on a screen or even in print. We've included an example of a well known colour which tends to look incorrect on a screen unless adjusted here:

The problem when using colour conversion apps even when populated with RGB data lifted without consent from a manufacturer's website rather than blindly guessing is that the App author has no way of knowing which are true conversions from the actual paint and which have been altered to be more recognisable on a website. When the conversion app gives you equivalent colours from different brands, you can be certain that the compared colour coordinates are not all physical measurements of physical paint samples. There is no one individual person in a position to state with confidence what is actually being compared.

Naturally, no model paint manufacturer which spends its time and money on actual research has anything much to gain from willingly sharing their precious colour coordinates with the author of a conversion App. The only companies who gain there are the App author and the manufacturers of generic colours which may or may not produce something coincidently similar to something real from history. Again, we have not and will not collaborate with any of these Apps.

We have initiated dialogue with one of these organisations with the aim of protecting our brand and reputation. In the mean time,

Users beware...