Well, chaps (and chappettes),

Even though it's not the proper shade of blue for the Matt Smith box, I've decided that I'm going to paint my TARDIS with Pantone 2955c.

As mine is being built to celebrate the 50th anniversary (and my 5th anniversary of surviving Testicular Cancer), I figured it comes close to the dark blue that the TARDIS has been over the years and would best represent the various shades of "TARDIS Blue" as a whole.  (At least, from my recollection of watching from the Pertwee-era on, it has usually been a darker shade of blue.)

Just curious if anyone else has used 2955c on their builds?

The Pantone paint chip..


And the paint, awaiting the day it will be applied to my box.

Looks very accurate to the 1963 prop and actual post-1954-ish police boxes. Although it is hard to be sure from one snapshot. Most of us have realized just how tricky blue can be in differing lights.

I used a scanned-in printed-off approximation.  Looks good.  No one could produce that color for me directly, so I had to use a printer from Pantone's website's reference picture.  Given the drift in the printer and in the scanner it's probably not exact, but it's close enough.

Hey, gang...

I've had some issues with that specific Pantone color because I wanted to use it for my business cards but it doesn't exist with the latest swatch books. That specific color isn't included in the new "Pantone+" color books in Adobe Creative Suite 6 so I might have to re-install some of the older swatch books from previous versions of CS.

According to one website, the hex color is #003b6f The closets I can get to that color in the Pantone+ swatch books is "648 C" or "654 C". I prefer "654 C" since it's not too dark. When painting my office we went with what Benjamin Moore calls "Big Country Blue 2066-30" because it closely matches what our eye sees for Matt Smith's Tardis looks like and because all the other colors were too dark for this room.

Here's the PMS Swatch from Illustrator CS4. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65215981/PMS%232955.pdf
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

CMYK mix is C=100 M=83 Y=33 K=20
RGB mix is R=0 G=58 B=105
And that is taken from Photoshop CS4.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

Tried to get Lowes to reproduce color in the US, but said they are only licensed for specific Pantone colors.  Swatches off computer screens apparently do not work for their color matching.  The closest they have is Princess Blue.  Does anyone know a good US paint store that can reproduce TARDIS Blue?

what about Sherwin willlams? If You do find a retailer in the states please let me know. At some point I am going to deal with the same problem.

Agreed: Sherwin Williams. They specialize in paints of all colors. And if BLowe's(sic) refuses to mix that color, you could try Home Depot. I've had better luck with Home Depot for just about everything than I've had with Lowe's, to the point that I don't even go there anymore. But a Sherwin William store would be a really good first choice.

Dino.

I just tried Lowe's and Home Depot and struck out at both places. I'll have to try Sherwin Williams tomorrow.

Really,  when I did mine I went to Lowes, give them this ( I can't remeber where I saw it, but apparently not here)  and I am very pleased with the color, be it exact ornot:

Pantone 2955C
Lowes #2343 937-480-3030 Tinter D
Valspar HydoChroma
Gallon Size
Semi-Gloss Exterior Reserve Base 4
8900-1Y17, 8915-19, 8930-10Y11.5, 8942-0.5

Maybe if you take that in and erase the Pantone 2955C  from the top, they won't realize they are mixing an pantone color?

I haven't actually used Sherwin Williams, but I was also impressed when I stopped in once.  I was between paintjobs but there was one on the same parking lot where I was having lunch and I've been driving by it for years so I popped in. 

When I did my build, I decided Oxford Blue was the right color for my TARDIS.  It's a pretty standard, well known color, but at both Lowe's and Home Depot I got blank stares before being pointed to the color swatches.  I think I got pretty close and, indeed, when I found some Oxford blue spray paint it was difficult to tell the areas I'd overpainted.  (Whether the paint was accurate is another question, but I'm assuming it was.)  That said, I decided that outdoors in natural lighting Oxford blue was too light for a 60s style police box and I should just go with the darkest blue I could find. 

Which brings me to Sherwin Williams.  Unlike the big box hardware places, where you have to struggle to find someone to sell you paint, a friendly person approached me as I was browsing the paint chips.  When I told him my saga, he decided to pop back to his computer and before I went out the door he told me he could mix up Oxford blue for me. 

Which, of course, opens a whole new can of worms:  Do I test my original theory on Oxford blue or just go with the darkest blue I can get.  The OCD in me wants to, but I'm 90% sure I know the answer and I'd hate to have too-light a box for another 2 years. 

Quote from: volpone on May 08, 2016, 04:28 pm
I haven't actually used Sherwin Williams, but I was also impressed when I stopped in once. .... Do I test my original theory on Oxford blue or just go with the darkest blue I can get.  The OCD in me wants to, but I'm 90% sure I know the answer and I'd hate to have too-light a box for another 2 years.

Sherwin Williams makes Awesome paint.  For an outdoor box I would not hesitate to get the more  expensive "super paint"  That is what I have used on my house and barn and even on T111 board, it holds up nicely.  If I had a Sherwin Williams store closer  or the TARDIS was bigger, I  might have taken the Lowes recipe to them to see if they could do it.  (However, the Lowes stuff I used was good quality and went on nicely  and has held up well, so no real complaints..)

The Recipe I posted was matched to the offical pantone TARDIS  color by someone else. How good their legwork and resulting match  was, I can't say. I can say it looks right to me.  It looks really really dark on a swatch ( my wife was convinced it was the wrong color till it was on the box) , and like all of the blues,  looks completely different depending on the lighting, but I am really pleased with the choice. Especially on a box that is in natural sunlight most of the time.  Lowes will make up a little can for you to try for a few bucks, so if you are repainting anyway, why not mix up a few little cans, one with the pantone 2955c I posted, another with a darker swatch  you like, and another with oxford blue  ( the stuff on there will have faded)   and then paint a side with each  as a primer coat ( no outdoor object can have too much paint on it)  and then walk around it till you decide which is the best and go from there?

Looking at our two profile pictures ( and assuming that the cameras and my desktop settings are approaching reality)  it seems the offical pantone is just a hair darker than what you already have.

Not meaning to throw even more paint quandaries into the mix <bad pun... just realized that> - and okay, maybe I do mean to throw more paint quandaries out there, but, volpone, since your lovely box is somewhat of a mix between the original Brachacki (Hartnell era) box and the Cushing box (the Top Signs) from the two Dalek films, and since you do have a fondness leaning more towards the actual Police Boxes (which the Cushing box most closely resembled, more than any other TARDIS version), have you considered trying to match the color used on that one?

Granted, the color all depends on the monitor and camera, and whatever page it's posted on as you'll see:







All of the above images are from "Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D." - which is the only one of the films that actually shows the Cushing TARDIS in normal "Earth" daylight. Still, you can see that each image, captured from a different site (one of them even being doctorwhotv.co.uk), shows the TARDIS in a different shade of blue. One thing they do all have in common, though, is that in every image, the Top Sign background is a lighter blue than the box, and since your Top Signs have a blue background maybe you can use that color as the "should be darker than" shade to consider.

One of those shades would be a great match for your box based on your box's design. But since even similar images above show a different shade of blue, I think jorwick has a good idea with using different blues on each side as a "primer", and then see which shade looks best to your eye and go with that as your top coat.

Dino.