# Moonbus interior colors?



## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I'm starting my Moebius moonbus. I've been rereading the threads here and at Capt Cardboards forum for references. 

After coalescing all the info, and adding in my 30 years in aviation experience I think I've come up with a few colors.

The floor looks to be a light grey (or maybe buff) with metallic stripes.

The seats look to be medium brown.

The walls of the back look to be a medium to dark grey with light olive drab netting.

Any thoughts? suggestions?

Thanks for any help

Mark


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## idMonster (Jun 18, 2003)

Hey, Mark,

Because of the way the scenes are lit in the movie it is next to impossible to tell what the colors were. Color behind-the-scenes photos of the interior (if they even exist) remain elusive.

I painted my first Moebius Moon Bus interior overall Tamiya Light Sand (spraycan). The seats are dark brown and the padding on the walls is dark tan. 

I was quite pleased how it turned out but, due to a discussion in an online forum, I will be going a different direction with my next one.

In that forum, and sadly I don't remember where I found it, there was speculation that the kit designers from Aurora had seen either the actual interior sets or color photos thereof and the "seafoam green" color of the interior parts is their match for the basic interior color of the set.

There was further speculation that the color that they were trying to match is the "institutional green" you see inside school buses and some military vehicles, e.g., the M-113. 

I have been swayed by this argument and will be painting the interior of my next Moon Bus with Tamiya Flat Sky, XF-21, a pale green that is better known to WW2 RAF modelers as Sky Type S.

I'll probably go with shades of blue and/or grey for the padding and seats. 

Looking forward to seeing how your Moon Bus turns out!

Gordon


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I don't remember why, but these are the colors I used on my MiM bus:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/2001moonbus3.html


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Nice job John. The red/brown and blue work really well. The moondust effect is the best I've seen.

idMonster,

Over at Capt. Cardboard's thread are some color corrected interior screen caps.
The green looks darker than the seafoam, but there is only so much detail that can be determined. I think Aurora got more right on the moonbus than we gave them credit for, both with the shape and color. 

I like Johns blue seats, something else to ponder.

Thanks guys for the input.

Anyone else have any photo's of a built up moonbus?


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Back when I built my kit, I studied the few available photos of the Moon Bus set, frame grabs from the movie, etc. There are also some issues in painting the kit to match the movie/set in that the kit interior does not really match the set very well in a lot of details. 

Here are three images from the film which, unfortunately, were filmed with color filters




























I used Tamiya TS-69 spray Linoleum Deck Brown for the seats, TS-46 Light Sand for the floor, etc. TS-30 Silver Leaf for the space suits and bright metal parts. The light greenish interior panels were done with Testors spray lacquer 1835 Lime Ice. Despite any online color depictions the color is a very very very pale yellowish green. I did not feel like masking the floor to paint the strips, which are invisible on the finished model if you have the roof on.




























The metal parts of the roof were done with Bare Metal Foil










The finished model was sprayed with Tamiya AS-20 Insignia White


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Some additional photos


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Thanks for the photo's, nice job.

One thing that might help, in the 3rd photo with the astronaut carrying the sandwich box back. 

The cargo on the left we can see the camera used at TMA1 and the O2 bottles on the bottom. O2 bottles are always green.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

I dont see any O2 bottles myself in the photo but there are none in the kit anyway. The kit interior only roughly matches the movie set. You can see the set is much taller and narrower. The back panel of the bus is totally different on the set from the kit too.

I am not sure that Oxygen bottles are always green either. Just doing a google search shows many many colors. Some are green, yellow, black, and blue. These US bottles from a bomber are yellow, for example.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/4739309905/lightbox/

There is a good thread here about the moon bus/kit/interior etc that should have a ton of info for you. I know I harvested it heavily when I built my kit some years back.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

idMonster said:


> In that forum, and sadly I don't remember where I found it, there was speculation that the kit designers from Aurora had seen either the actual interior sets or color photos thereof and the "seafoam green" color of the interior parts is their match for the basic interior color of the set.
> 
> There was further speculation that the color that they were trying to match is the "institutional green" you see inside school buses and some military vehicles, e.g., the M-113.
> 
> ...


Not sure exactly what those 2 greens look like but if they are anything like the interior green Aurora molded the moon bus in then I wouldn't be so quick to use them for the simple reason being it's also the same color for the Spindrift interior from Aurora, not to mention the PL Spindrift.


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## miniature sun (May 1, 2005)

I went with the sky green as well, although mainly because it looks right when lit with the blue-ish cast of the EL sheet I used in the roof...




























Also I'd recommend using the ParaGrafix upgrades, especially the resin set as it really improves the overall look.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

djnick66 said:


> I dont see any O2 bottles myself in the photo but there are none in the kit anyway.
> 
> I am not sure that Oxygen bottles are always green either. Just doing a google search shows many many colors. Some are green, yellow, black, and blue. These US bottles from a bomber are yellow, for example.
> 
> ...


I took the 2 cylinders on the lower left to be O2 bottles. Thats interesting about the yellow tanks in the bomber. Every O2 bottle I ever saw/used in the AirForce and Airlines has always been green as have every one I've seen in the medical world. 

I went through all the threads here and over at Capt Cardboards forums for info. I'm just trying to pick everyones brain here, and have gotten great ideas.

Thanks everyone keep the suggestions coming.


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## Bobj812 (Jun 15, 2009)

This is a comparison of what was shown and what I tried to color correct to see what might be the true colors of the set. I think I ended up using one of the rope bundles in the back as my neutral target.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

I chose my colors based on several factors:

The interior in the movie had a blue or green cast

The original Aurora kit came in green plastic so I wanted sot of a nod to that

Many real items have a light "hospital green" interior color

The light green went well with the tan


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Thanks. I appreciate the help.

I googled the color of O2 bottles and found out that while green is the accepted color in the US, but there is no regulation or industry standard.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I just watched the moonbus segment on bluray. It looks like the pilots instrument panel is close. Just missing the joystick and translation controller.

The chart rack behind the pilots looks ok, but I need to look at it more closely.

The equipment/cargo is totally wrong.

there is no backpack/stowage or backpacks 

There should be only 4 seats instead of 6. 

on the back bulkhead the 2 circular grills should be truncated triangles.

The high mounted O2/fire extinguisher bottles are missing, they look white or silver to me.

It looks like Floyed is sitting at the 4th window. There are only 3 passengers including Floyed on the bus.

It looks to me that the raised portion of the floor/deck is light grey with copper/red/gold stripes. The padded area of the walls are some shade of green. The non padded area of the walls look to be Medium grey.

Does anyone have any thoughts/corrections/additions?

Also does anyone know if the aftermarket interior that was available (Stargazer I think) is still available?

Thanks
Mark


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## miniature sun (May 1, 2005)

The resin replacement rear wall in the ParaGrafix update set corrects the circular grilles for the triangular ones...it also provides the rear RCS thrusters missing from the kit part.
I didn't bother changing the seat arrangement in mine figuring that it could just be a different mission profile.
Ditto the cargo...if you plan on glueing the roof on very little of the interior can be seen anyway.
If you are planning on a totally correct interior you'll need to alter the roof lights which are the wrong shape.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I have seen the ParaGrfix set and it is beautiful. But that set does not correct the cargo/seating. I agree about the mission changeable cabin, that makes sense.


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## miniature sun (May 1, 2005)

I think the cargo would be relatively simple to scratchbuild to make it screen accurate. The extra seat plinths are easy enough to remove using a razor saw and the ribbed floor could be patched up using Evergreen strip.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I think thats what I'll have to do if I go that route. I like the look of the movie cargo. I'm thinking the backpacks can be scratched together fairly easily.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Ok,

I've made some progress. I'm going the scratch build route for the interior. I took out the first 2 seats. I'm still working out the cargo. I think it's too large as it is. 

The interior is just dry fitted. I went with light grey for the floor, Blue/grey for the seats, RAF bomber green for the walls, and very light grey for the exterior.



I added 2 joysticks and 2 translation controllers.



Any thoughts?


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## hal9001 (May 28, 2008)

Where did the figures come from? Are they for sell?

Thanks,
hal9001-


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## steve123 (Feb 9, 2009)

I love Moon Busses!!

This is what I did with cargo:








I went with an airliner motif..lol
and I used the TSDS decals:
























I had a ball building mine.

Steve


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

hal9001 said:


> Where did the figures come from? Are they for sell?
> 
> Thanks,
> hal9001-


Sorry, I don't follow. Did I miss something?

Steve, Nice cargo! I love the supply lockers.

Great job on your build.


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

I have mine just about finished, that was a couple of weeks ago, and was in a quagmire figuring it out too. I have the Bluray so I played it but as everyone knows, the moonbus interior scenes are almost impossible to get the colors from, maybe just a very general idea but nothing exact. I did figure the floor was bare aluminum with shinier raised strips which is what I did with mine whether you can see it in the picture or not. I thought the seats were brown and that the side trim was a soft light brown material to protect against people being thrown against it during flight. So this is how I painted mine but I still have to finish the upper portion of the roof interior which I haven't done yet. Here is a pic of the lower half of the interior which is basically completed. I also used the PGMS decal sheets and some of the photoetched brass parts. And as I recall from watching the movie scenes there were fire extinguishers near all the windows which would be great for an aftermarket addition.


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

Here is what I did with my original Aurora Moonbus I bought about 11 years ago from e-bay. At the time I could find very little color references so I just went with what looked right. I also glued the exterior trim strips to the body of the Moonbus instead of the roof, this change along with trimming about 1/2 mm from each edge of the roof allows the roof to be snapped into place, eliminating any warp that may be present in the roof.


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## jheilman (Aug 30, 2001)

Wow, loving all these builds. Great to see everyone's approach and color schemes.


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## Ductapeforever (Mar 6, 2008)

I went a different path,....I always envisioned the side outcropings as airlocks, so I added the missing forward openings and glassed them all in.
The interior was inspired by our local Transit System. Colors were my choice.
Hey, it ain't 'Cannon' but it looks cooler and functional. Just a bit more work
and it's done.


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## hal9001 (May 28, 2008)

mach7 said:


> Sorry, I don't follow. Did I miss something?


Gees, do they come with the kit? I thought they may have been aftermarket. This particular kit is in storage or I would have looked!

Sorry, never mind...

hal9001-


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## jheilman (Aug 30, 2001)

Yeah, the astronaut figures shown come with the kit.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

The biggest problem with making the kit interior look like the set is that the kit and set are totally different proportion-wise. IIRC the kit is wiser and more spacious, the set is pretty narrow but much taller (probably to accomodate lighting, filming etc). The shapes of the bulkheads, angles of the walls, depth of the floor are just not the same. What people have done here is about as good as it gets... working with the kit parts and rearranging them a bit to get something better visually.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

hal9001 said:


> Gees, do they come with the kit? I thought they may have been aftermarket. This particular kit is in storage or I would have looked!
> 
> Sorry, never mind...
> 
> hal9001-


Sorry, I completely spaced on your question. I did not even realize one of the figures was visible in the photo. As posted the figures are included with the kit. They are very soft on detail. I think they include 2 pilots, 5 seated passengers, and 1 standing passenger.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Nice busses all!

Ductapeforever,

Nice interior. It kind of makes sense to have grab rails. 
It's interesting that you chose the older conformal windows, They look great,
I'm just wondering why you went that route? I ask because I'm still not sure which windows I want to go with. I like the look of the old style, but the consensus is the flat windows are correct to the filming model.
I also love the name!


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## Ductapeforever (Mar 6, 2008)

Kind of wanted a smooth look to the Cabin so the windows were an easy choice. The interior was inspired by our local Mass Transit, the coaches all have yellow handrails and dividers with black handhold straps hanging fron the above railings, so I went that way.


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## steve123 (Feb 9, 2009)

Don't let Merriman see that....lol

Steve


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## portland182 (Jul 19, 2003)

I hope this is ok to borrow the picture and tweak it!
I know this is hopelessly blown out but...
All I have done is increase the 'intensity' in this picture and I seem to see 2 colors for the side walls!

http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j119/portland182/Moonbus/?action=view&current=MBcolortweak2.jpg

Green AND Brown???

Also, it may be an optical illusion, but the window frames seem not identical to the roof lining...

Jim


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

Two colors makes sense, to add visual variety. Maybe taking a pale gray and tinting it slightly towards green and brown (or towards warm and cool) might be the way to go for the two colors.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

I assume the padding on the walls is a different color from the walls themselves


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## portland182 (Jul 19, 2003)

For those that can't access the photo-

Apparently...
The walls appear to be a pale blue/grey
The window arched parts are a little darker
The upper padding is brown
The lower padding is green

but remember the photo has been mucked about with to get to this conclusion...

Jim


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## portland182 (Jul 19, 2003)

Ignore the previous 2 posts by me.

I asked Doug Trumbull, who was kind enough to forward the question to Dave Larson, who is currently working on a 2001 book.
This is the reply from Dave via Doug

_the Moonbus set interior was painted, like he says, in various shades of gray...the cockpit the same as the passenger compartment. The padding detailing and seats are a cross between a khaki and olive green. That's it...they didn't paint them any differently. 
Also, they used colored jells in the Moonbus interior lighting rather than filter the film itself. You can see that in the movie, all in one shot the passenger compartment has the greenish/blue lighting and the cockpit has the red lighting (like they do in operational areas of Navy ships in the night). There are rush clips of the set lit with a more natural white light...and the set colors are easy to see...but Stanley didn't want to go that way. _

So green padding and green seats, and shades of grey walls.
The brown seen on the 'color corrected' pic is an artifact of the color correction!

Cheers

Jim


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Ok, I can't see any info coming that is better than that.

I'll keep the side padding green but I'll have to think about repainting the seats.

I was planing on grey for the bulkheads so thats still good.

Thanks portland182!


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

djnick66 said:


> The biggest problem with making the kit interior look like the set is that the kit and set are totally different proportion-wise.


When I do mine (still in the box since I bought it during the pre-release) I plan on sliding the equipment bay forward up to the cockpit floor riser. I know on the real set that floor elevation wasn't there but what can you do unless you rebuild a new interior from scratch raising the floors, and windows to match the hull openings but that may bring everything out of proportion. But with the equipment bay moved up, the space between the first passenger/cargo area and bulkhead is increased just like in the movie. That section contains a long vent on each side and is about 1.5 times the length of a window section. The cockpit is shorter in the movie. You can see the forward equipment bay partition almost up to the back of the pilot seats.



portland182 said:


> _Moonbus set interior was painted, like he says, in various shades of gray...the cockpit the same as the passenger compartment. The padding detailing and seats are a cross between a khaki and olive green._


Thanks for posting this. I'll take that info into consideration when painting my build up.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I've made a bit of progress, but its slow.

Other things keep getting in the way.

I'm still tweaking the interior cargo. I still think its too big.


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## f1steph (Jan 9, 2003)

I'm about to start building a Moonbus after I'm done with my Batmobile. Do you have the final picutres of your Moonbus? 3 years ago, I've asked Martin Bower what colors he would paint the interior and he told my that he would go with different grey tones. And the blue ambiant color is totally illogical, if you look at the movie, the cealing lights are white. So they did use blue filters to film this scene.... I will try to add lights on my Moonbus .


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

I do, I'll post them in a few days. I'm away from home now.


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## f1steph (Jan 9, 2003)

Thanks a lot......


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Sorry it took so long, but here they are.


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

The main interior colors are flat light grey, overall

SAC bomber green, seats

dark olive drab, side panels

medium grey, bulkheads

The exterior is Tamiya grey primer 

The legs and rocket motors are chrome steel. with white accents.

overall black metallic eye shadow was used for lunar dust.

I hope this helps.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

f1steph said:


> I'm about to start building a Moonbus after I'm done with my Batmobile. Do you have the final picutres of your Moonbus? 3 years ago, I've asked Martin Bower what colors he would paint the interior and he told my that he would go with different grey tones. And the blue ambiant color is totally illogical, if you look at the movie, the cealing lights are white. So they did use blue filters to film this scene.... I will try to add lights on my Moonbus .


Not totally clear on your ambiant blue reference, but white lights range in color from red to blue. Most photography and movie lighting used quartz or carbon arc lights which are both in the blue (daylight) range of color.

You may also be seeing the reflection of the light off the grey walls which can add a blue tint.

Remember, everyone sees color differently and most men are color blind to some extent, so your results may very. Just understand what we see differently is always the same, we just learn to label them for our own reference.

:cheers2:


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## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

My thoughts are that the Moonbus could of or would have been built by the same corporation as the Aries 1B. I plan base my colors on the interior of that vehicle. That were not film through a colored gel.. Just a thought. Photo show the seats and padding as a green/kaki tone.

Rogue.


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## f1steph (Jan 9, 2003)

Thanks for posting your Moonbus pictures. 



As for the interior lights as seen in the movie, what I'm refering to is the ceiling lights are white so everything inside the back cabin shouldn't have a ''blueish tone''. We can also see the backpack are ''almost purple'' instead of blue. I find this illogical...... but hey, you I am to critized this movie. We, sci-fi modelers, have to live with it and decide if we try to mimic the movie Moonbus or buit our own version.... as long as we have fun building it...



https://photos.app.goo.gl/pg1wwEH7BGWy5hXLA


That's a good idea to use the Aries interior colors reference..... I'm still scratching my head about what I will do with the interior colors....


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

Yup, Paint it as you like it. Thats all we can do.

I like the greens/grey. It looks utilitarian to me and the Moon bus is a truck.

One issue I have with the same colors as the Aries 1b is that the Aries is a passenger craft.
A totally different job than the Moon bus. I have been in cargo and passenger aircraft from the
same company, the interior furnishings are completely different.

But there is a logic to your way of thinking.


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## f1steph (Jan 9, 2003)

mach7 said:


> Yup, Paint it as you like it. Thats all we can do.
> 
> I like the greens/grey. It looks utilitarian to me and the Moon bus is a truck.
> 
> ...



You are absolutely right, the Aries and the Moonbus are two different type of spacecraft. A cargo type interior would be more logical... And the interior shoult be dirty... According to the astronauts that went to the Moon, the moon surface is very thin, it sticks to everything like a magnet........ and it smells like rotten eggs... that we can't memic that in a model.... ehhh, yes we can but that would create some display problems...:grin2:


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## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

While the moombus was a utility vehicle or as said a truck, it was also a bus ferrying people throughout the Moonbase. Some of those would have been executives. It's reasonable to think there could have been a line of moonbuses. Some kept more for passengers and some more utilitarian, the basic frame being the same. Having the same color scheme. Possibly like the Aries. Yea I know I'm grasping, but it's just a thought.

Rogue


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