Re: Toynami/Cinemaquette presents: BATWING & (coming soon) BATMOBILE.
Pearl silver metallic?...are you sure were talking about the same silver?
this looks pretty black to me
Chris
Firstly, I'm not sure that it is the same car, or rather, the same paint. They developed the pearl silver color specifically for the Batmobile, in the words of Terry Ackland Snow, head of the build team,"We wanted it to look like a beetle" It IS possible that it is the same color, but if so, it is extremely oxidized, which makes it look darker and duller.
Let me also point out that this car is shown with a banner in front of the car, on the floor, that says, "Batman Returns" The Batman Returns Batmobile WAS painted black, and not the same pearl silver as it was painted in Batman. The wheels on this car are different, because they don't have the bat shaped spinner that goes almost all the way to the edge of the rim. This car also has a different gas filler, as the 1989 Batmobile had a polished metal one, from a bus. In any case, this isn't the exact same car as in Batman, or it isn't exactly the way the car WAS in Batman.
I know a bit about auto detailing, so i know what a car looks like when it's oxidized. I'm sorry to have to point out the obvious, but you can see a silver car next to the Batmobile, and a black car behind the Batmobile, with all cars under approximately the same lighting. Which car does the Batmobile look closer in color to, to you? To me, the Batmobile obviously looks like a dark dull oxidized silver, basically a grey, much more similar to the silver car next to it. The color is a far cry from the black car behind it.
There was an interview on ABC on TV with Gary Franklin just before the movie came out that I recall vividly. He talked with Terry Ackland Snow for about 4 minutes just about the design and building of the Batmobile. They showed footage of the car in full garage lighting, and let me tell you, that car was a glossy dark silver that showed green, blue and purple, depending upon the angle of the surface of the car to the camera. Now, being a very fine pearl metallic with no clear coat, the paint definitely won't be anywhere near as glossy as if it had clear on it, which makes it seem less shiny. However, when this car was NEW, and you had adequate lighting, unlike when it was shot in the Batman movie, in which it was ALWAYS shown in very dim lighting at night, the car is indeed a medium pearl silver. Not a light silver, not as light as the silver car in that pic, but a few shades darker.
The picture on the box of the first 1/24 1/25 scale model kit is a pretty good idea of the real color of the car, although that is still shown in rather dim light. The funny thing about color is that how it appears really depends a lot upon the lighting it is in. silver, grey, and all other dark shades of other colors can APPEAR black in dim enough lighting.
Honestly, most people believed that the Batmobile in Batman was black, because it was so dark, and because, quite frankly, people ASSUME it to be black, because it's the Batmobile, of course it's black, right? Not in this case. They made it silver so it could be seen at night. Remember, the Batmobile on the tv series was almost always filmed in the daytime. There were times when it was shot at night, but then, it would practically disappear.
One thing I have always been frustrated about is that as far as I know, there has NEVER been any scale model of any kind of the Batmobile available painted in the correct color. Apparently, it did take them a bit of effort to develop the paint for the car as Mr. Snow explained in the interview, and I don't know if they wrote down the formula, or even ever used that color paint ever again.
Nowadays, of course, there is another problem, which is that all automotive paint is base coat color, in a water base paint, which is pure color with no gloss, and then a high gloss urethane clear coat goes over it, for protection and looks. Base coat clear coat paint does NOT look exactly the same as a non clear coat gloss color paint, which is known as single stage paint. This means that if you were to paint the Batmobile again today, it would not look EXACTLY the same. Most people wouldn't care, but I am really picky and think that authenticity is paramount.
Have a look at the Batmobile in this video, The Making of Batman, Building the Batmobile, particularly at the 3:12 to 3:17 mark, and you will see the real color of the car.
Also take note of 4:24 to 4:31. There is no way you could see that color as anything but silver, and certainly not black.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJq2NqzhHyE[/ame]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cJq2NqzhHyE#t=264s
