I’m stuck in a town with no hobby shop anymore. I’ll be heading into the “big city” soon, where there is one store, at least. I need some TUSCAN paint, and figure I should also pick up some FLAT BLACK and FLAT WHITE, as well as “SP ORANGE.”
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what else I should have on hand, from your experience?
Rail tie brown, Rusty rail, Light rust, Dark rust, Roof brown, Grimy black, Aged concrete, Asphalt, Light green, Medium green, Dark green. The greens will go in the areas where the green scenery will go in. If something comes off there will be green under it.
thanks…that does sound like a line-up of the “usual suspects” alright…had no idea anyone had put out paints with such names as “asphalt”–now to see if the hobby shop HAS such stuff!
Floquil “used” to offer a “sampler” pack of their most popular colors in their standard paint line, I don’t know if they still do or not but that and a few other as mentioned here might be a good way for you to go. Don’t forget the “thinner” right away if you’re going to use the standard colors.
I still have Floquil paints in my paint inventory that have the old 98 cent price tag on it and it’s still good after all of these years so if you keep it sealed up properly the shelf life is a long time.
Mark
For trains, you want to get the right paints at a hobby shop. For scenery, though, a good collection of acrylic craft paints can be found at craft stores like Michaels or A.C. Moore. When I see them on sale, I pick up handfuls of greens and browns. Don’t overlook these stores. Yes, you have to walk past aisles of stuff for making pink pillows with ponies on them, and beads, but they also carry a good selection of balsa wood strips. They have plaster cloth and Envirotex, too, and every glue imaginable. A.C. Moore even has a small section of Woodland Scenics trees.
For scenery paint you can use craft paint or if you are the type who likes to get the most for the least you can go with flat latex. Sometimes you can find the color you want as a mis-tint and get a quart for just a few $. I have a large collection of latex colors I use. They can be used in an external mix airbrush but the paint requires some filtering first to screen out any chunks and it will of course have to be thinned, best thinned with water and some experimenting may be required.
Roggie,
Include various shades of tans and earth tones.
You’ve received good suggestions, but it would be helpful if you told us what you are planning to paint and/or weather in the near future. Do you airbrush, hand paint, or both? Do you prefer acrylics or solvent based mixes?
It’s easy for a modeler to build up an inventory when he/she has a wide variety of paint projects. I just counted my paint bottles and was surprised to see that I have 47! This includes clears,metalizers, and thinners. Didn’t get them overnight, of course, just over the years and surprisingly the ones over 5 years old are still good.
Keep your eyes out for the Acrylic and Enamel labels. It’s easy to get them mixed up in the shop. The colors were pretty much covered already. Also consider getting a good set or 2 of small brushes.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that I DO have quite a collection of unused and partially used paints…none of which are less than 20 years old!
I decided to paint the ends of an undecorated caboose SP Orange, to contrast with the black body. I struggled to OPEN the little glass bottle for hours…ended up using heavy tools and having it BREAK open, spilling the entire contents on my workbench surface…so ran to get as many pieces of rolling stock as I thought that colour would look good, on, and slathered the puddle onto them, at lightning speed before it dried.
One of the young guys who frequents this board, told me on Facebook, to try holding such bottles under really hot water, first. DUH. Next time I had to do this, it came off pretty easily.
But after that many years, most of the paint is toast…so the moral may be to only buy what you know you will USE soon.
I feel your pain, Brother!
I would recommend lots of thinner! You can never have enough for thinning and clean up when you’re done.
Roger Huber
I cracked up, just now, reading your post (about having to weed through pink pony pillows…which would be a horrible name for a rock band, by the way).
It made me think back to a mini-vacation we took in the middle of absolutely nowhere, British Columbia…after just lounging around a couple days, we decided to drive into the hustle and bustle of beautiful downtown NAKUSP.
I was shocked to see a decent sized hobby shop, on the main (only) street…so sent my wife off to look at the junk in “Knick-nack Patty Whax” so she’d leave me alone for awhile.
I slowly walked each of the six aisles, looking both sides for anything that resembled TRAIN items…once I’d gone down every aisle, the woman watching me the whole time, asked what I was looking for.
“I’m so confused…I don’t recognize a single thing in this entire store, as being something I could connect to a HOBBY!” (I didn’t want to say “its nothing but CRAP,” but that was what I had concluded.)
She laughed and said that Nakusp people are big on remote control flying stuff, and that all the aisles I inspected, were piles of PARTS for that hobby.
What a letdown! I had it in mind that I’d see stock on the shelves from the FIFTIES that had never been sold, and maybe find a Varney tank car that had never been opened…with the $1.29 price tag intact.
Obviously, you’ve forgotten about the Moby Grape!
Toad the Wet Sprocket got its name from a Monty Python skit which set out to think up really bad names for rock bands.
And now, for something completely different…
Mark
The WS Stain set is really good for scenery. They’re more of a water based stain than a paint.
Alrighty, then…guess one basic thing about paint I need to learn, is whether I can use acrylics on plastic/metal rolling stock–or if it has to be enamel.
When I did up a couple of dioramas a couple years back, I was pickled tink to find that the craft paint my wife uses on stuff, (water based, easy clean-up!) worked just FINE for scenery…and oh so cheap.