Gary, the lighter blue is supposed to reflect the sun bleaching and correct... However, like you, I prefer to start with a 'freshly' painted insignia and fade everything accordingly instead of freshly painted top camouflage colors and overly faded stars!The kit wing decals for the P-40 were too light of a blue so they were removed. I had a darker set of blue one left over from a previous P-40 build about ten years ago.