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Color Matching Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) Spraypaints
Nov
As you start printing more and more vehicles, you’ll look for ways to speed up your workflow, especially when it comes to painting the basics. Generally speaking I prime all of my models with rust-oleum automotive filler primer to help hide the printing lines with FDM printing. Next I’ve taken to using the Plastic Solider Company (PSC) range of Army and Tank spray paints to base coat my vehicles and miniatures before a dip or a wash (using Vallejo’s dipping immersion washes in either Sepia or Black). I’ll then sponge on highlights with the matching Vallejo paint before a quick drybrush of a highlight color (often Vallejo Iraqi Sand). To do this, you need to know what paint matches with each PSC primer can. Here are the best matches I can get:
| PSC War Spray | PSC Product Code | Vallejo Paint | Vallejo Number |
| Tank Warspray Mid-Late War German Dunkelgelb | SP001 | Middlestone | 882 |
| Tank Warspray Early War German Panzer Grey | SP002 | German Grey | 995 |
| Tank Warspray Russian | SP003 | Russian Green | 894 |
| Tank Warspray British | SP004 | Russian Uniform | 924 |
| Tank Warspray United States | SP005 | Violet Brown/Olive Drab | 887 |
| Infantry Spray German Field Grey | SP006 | Field Grey | 830 |
| Infantry Spray Russian Uniform | SP007 | Russian Uniform | 924 |
| Infantry Spray British Khaki | SP008 | English Uniform | 921 |
| Infantry Spray US Olive Drab | SP009 | US Field Drab | 873 |
Interestingly PSC Tank British and PSC Infantry Russian Uniform both match Vallejo Russian Uniform 924, so I probably could have saved some money and only purchased one can for both armies! One thing to be aware of with the PSC paints, is while they are great paints, and match well with the Vallejo bottles, the cans do seem to be fragile, with one of mine ending up with a hole on the seam overnight, leaking out in a massive bubble over a few days straight after I purchased it. So be careful with how you store them, and give them a quick double check in the store before purchase. I feel that these are better quality paints than the army painter sprays, as they don’t leave the powdery residue that you can some times end up with these.
Looking for a more complete conversion guide for paints, check out our updated spreadsheet below:
Sorry to say, but “matching” in this context depends on how precise you want to be.
As an excessive user of the PSC sprays I can tell that none of the paints mentioned here actually “match”. German Grey used to match until about 2017 when PSC changed the grey recipe; the PSC grey is now a lot more like the Revell grey, making the Vallejo German Grey significantly darker.
Note that also British Tank and Russian Infantry, while supposedly matching, are not; the actual Russian Infantry spray is a lot closer to the color, than the British Tank spray. The latter is more closer to the Russian Tank spray, than to Russian Infantry.
I use 888 Olive Grey for the Russian Tank spray, but also this is slightly greyer, such as the 894 is slightly greener than the actual spray. However, as I drybrush my tanks green grey, I found that the 888 blends in better after the dry brush, than the 894.
As matching color for the Panzer Grey spray I recommend the Revell grey; for the German Dunkelgelb, I have so far not found a better color than the named Middlestone. However, be advised, also this is not a 100% match.
When I talk about 100% match, I am looking at the Army Painter Range, where they provide both spray and bottle with the same pigment. Having used Army Green, Greenskin, and Angel Green here so far, I have to say they never let me down.
cheers