WEM Colourcoats / White Ensign Paint / Colourcoats?
EDIT: This post seems to be one of our most popular blog posts! Please note this way written back in the beginning and the paint ranges may not reflect current availability. Please check out our research pages for the most up to date information. Thank you for visiting and we hope you find what you're looking for!
Branding
We often have searches and questions through our webstore, or observe topics on modelling forums (fora for Latin speakers?) we sponsor from people looking for WEM paint, White Ensign Paint, WEM Colourcoats and various amalgamations of the above. Many of you will know that our Colourcoats paint is actually former White Ensign Models' "Colourcoats" range.
When we bought over Colourcoats - all rights to the "White Ensign Models" part of the brand went away to the USA with the photo etch brass and resin kits (now owned by Richard over at Toms Modelworks - you can find WEM photo etched brass products on our webstore also) so it was necessary to re-brand the paint to reflect both the legal and practical considerations. We decided to keep the familiar "Colourcoats" name and sell it under our own new company - Sovereign Hobbies. We acquired over 26,000 tins of Colourcoats paint and all legal rights to Colourcoats in the sale. Much of our current stock is relabelled ex-WEM stock. Some colours have a high turnover and some do not, and the more popular colours have sold out and been re-manufactured since the sale of Colourcoats to us.
Colourcoats remains to be manufactured in the same specialist factory in the United Kingdom, to the same premium quality formulae. We continuously work to improve specific colours as needed and have already made subtle but beneficial improvements to the range you know and love.
In summary - these are no longer called "WEM" paints. White Ensign Models and Sovereign Hobbies are completely separate companies and legal entities, owned and run by different people in different continents. We at Sovereign Hobbies have decided to stock White Ensign Models' products here in the UK, but White Ensign Models has had no association with Colourcoats paint since December 2014.
The range
We have subdivided the range to make it easier to find what you are looking for. With over 420 colours available, it could potentially be a challenge to locate the exact one you want. Colourcoats is split into "Colourcoats Sea" for maritime colours, "Colourcoats Air" for aviation colours and "Colourcoats Land" for armour colours. Within each of these ranges, we have sectioned these into nationalities and/or time periods.
In Colourcoats Sea you will find naval colours for the WW2 Royal Navy, US Navy, Modern Naval, Kriegsmarine, Regia Marina, Imperial Japanese Navy & general colours prefixed with "C".
In Colourcoats Air you will find aircraft colours for Royal Air Force / Fleet Air Arm, United States Army Air Force / United States Navy / United States Air Force, Regia Aeronautica, Armee de l'Air, Royal Australian Air Force, Luftwaffe, Imperial Japanese Army Air Force/ Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service, Russian WW2 and modern air forces, Great War colours & general colours prefixed with "C".
In Colourcoats Land you will find armour colours for British Army, US Army, Wehrmacht, Australian Army, Italian Army, Russian Army, Israeli Japanese Army & general colours prefixed with "C".
Changes to the range
Our ACJ - Japanese aircraft range has been updated with names changed to better describe their use. We worked with expert Nick Millman of www.aviationofjapan.com/ who has very kindly provided valuable input to our colour range with his in-depth research. To date, the colours themselves remain exactly the same and any stock you have already will match the current range perfectly, although some improvements to the range are planned.
We have also improved the quality of ACRN17 - Night Bomber Black to improve its user friendliness for both spray and brush painting.
We have added two new colours to the range - ACLW22 - RLM79 Sandgelb (Hell) for use on Mediterranean theatre WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft & ACJ22 - IJAAF #7 Ohryoku nana go shoku for use on late WW2 Imperial Japanese Army Air Force aircraft (from mid-1944 onwards)
What's new?
We have recently started selling Coloursets and will continue to bring these out in new guises. We welcome any suggestions to new coloursets you may have. Look out for our new larger Coloursets coming soon!
Our most recent release has been a Colourcoats thinners - compatible with all Colourcoats paint and other enamel ranges. Colourcoats thinner dries quickly, has a more pleasant odour than white spirit or cellulose and is less aggressive to styrene plastics than cellulose thinners. Its been quite a hit with modellers so far.
So - spread the knowledge. If you know people looking for WEM paint or White Ensign Paint or WEM Colourcoats - it is now known simply as "Colourcoats" sold by Sovereign Hobbies!u