Wondering if anyone with knowledge of Floquil or Pollyscale acrylics might be able to suggest what maroon colour might be suitable for these New Zealand locos. (I’ve been able to download a Floquil color chart in pdf form, but I’m sure that color management conversions are screwing things up - for example on the chart “Signal Red” looks more orange than the red it really is.)
Rock Island Maroon might be a close match.
Looks like you’re in the same pickle many of us wind up in.
Photographs, unfortunately will show different shades or color hues based on the lighting on and around the subject. Additionally color film can be a bit discriminatory as well. For years Kodak film was notorious for accenting reds and yellows while Fuji film seemed to pick up blues and greens better. Hopefully digital film doesn’t have this problem.
What I do now is get a color photo of the subject and use a Floquil or a Badger Modelflex chart to match the paint as closely as possible. Additionally I’ll experiment with varying paint mixes. Old Tyco or Bachmann cars are great for “airbrush sampling”. Make sure to spray a neutral gray primer first on your test subjects.
As emdgp92 mentions, RI maroon may not be a bad start. In looking at the 3rd photo the color resembles a Santa Fe red with about 10% white added in.
Go ahead, experiment and remember…even the prototypes weren’t consistent! There are plenty of color photos showing SCL locos back in the 70s with various shades of yellow. It depended upon which division shop the unit was painted at.
I would add that you have to match under the lighting conditions on your layout. Since indoor lighting is so much different than outdoors, it is easy to end up too dark on models.