Where to buy paints

[Zoll014]

Simple question: where are you all buying your Pantone or RAL color paints for Halo3 ODST Rookie/generic grunt? I've been to Lowes, Home Depot, and even Sherwin Williams, all to no avail. I'd rather not get color mixed online due to prohibitively high cost for a single can of custom color. Where exacty are you ordering or buying the appropriate colors off the shelf? I've seen the Vallerjo, Pantone, and RAL color codes. Are there common brands with equivalent matches?

 

[SgtSaint]

Personally - I don't get overly OCD on matching Pantone codes. The color chips get you in the neighborhood.
But color changes so much just from your environment lighting that I don't feel its worth getting all ate up over matching a code.

Try the autoparts store instead of hardware stores. You can find 20 shades of gray for example because of minor diferences between Toyota Meteor Gray and Honda Galaxy Gray... etc.


Sunlight, LED, fluorescents, sodium-vapor lamps - all cast different colors. So I personally, don't get caught up in trying to match to the code - but instead make a visual match... "Yeah, that paint cap looks like this color chip"

And another lighting example. This is me, at a convention, and you can see the color change just from side lighting.

 

[Zoll014]

Ended up arriving at the same conclusion, and took the "close enough" approach. Wound up going with Vallejo model paints:

28012 Primer Black for the base color over the silver beneath.

28006 Feldgrau for the primary color.

28011 Primer Grey for the helmet stripe.