Another option to consider is Modelflex Pullmann Green. Your original note says you are looking for a spray can, but I found that Modelflex brushes on very nicely. My first DIY paint job on an undec PA1 diesel was Modelflex brushed on with a soft camel hair brush. No brush marks, no covering of the rivet detail.
George V.
I am working from memory here since I repainted the car so it might have been a gloss black. Whether it was gloss or flat, it looked black, not green. It closely matched the black roof of the heavyweight car.
Lighter is what I want. I’ll find out later if it is too light. That would still be better than black.
In doing some research, I discovered that Santa Fe’s heavyweights were not painted Pullman Green but what they called Coach Green. I have heavyweight Santa Fe cars which I relettered from both Walthers and Athearn and if that is the shade I get with Tamiya’s Cockpit Green, I will be very happy with it.
Hmm, I have to go dig out my test shell, I painted parts of the inside in Polly Scale and Scalecoat Pullman Green to see which one matched what, but of course most of my stuff is all boxed up still.
What color was the car you painted before applying the PG? I painted on an Atls undec RS3, which is grey plastic. If you painted over black plastic with no lighter primer over it, that would darken the results.
–Randy
I used the Pullman Green on an undecorated Roundhouse Palace car which was made in black plastic. The car body was almost indistinguishable from the unpainted roof when the paint dried.
After painting many cars and trucks in my life…a black primer will dull/darken a color…A light Grey primer will brighten/lighten a color and of course, a white primer will make the same color much lighter.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
I just used some Tamiya TS-9 British Green to spray a couple of Athearn HW passenger cars. Probably not dark enough for a true Pullman Green; but close enough for what I am doing.
jecorbert,
I suggest doing a simple experiment with the Scale Coat pullman green paint you already have to see if the perceived final color is because of the bare black plastic you are laying the paint on (as some posters have already alluded to).
Spray one plastic card (or whatever handy) with black paint and another with light grey (or white) paint. Then paint both with your SC pg paint, let dry, and compare the two under your existing lighting in the layout room. What do you see in the comparison?
I have used SC pullman green a number of times on passenger car projects and to my eye under my halogen track lighting, it is a very close match to the pullman green paint used on the Branchline Heavyweight pullman car kits. The caveat is that the cars I started off with were bare light green plastic, NOT black.
I vote for the experiment to save you hunting down (read spending time and mone
Look at military color selections the next time you are in a hobby shop… I have used dark green in past years, but I do not recall which brand.
You should be able to find a suitable or exact match for the color You are looking for…don’t by no mean’s get hung up on a Railroad color name…a paint MFG. may have the exact color that You seek, but with a different color name. I have been using Tamiya paints for yrs. and many of their colors match, Railroad specific colors, but with different color name’s. Large list of colors available. Just because it say’s Military color’s…so what! If it matches Your color.
Here is a link to Tamiya:
http://www.tamiyausa.com/articles/feature.php?article-id=72#.VQhrZNLF9Pk
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
zstripe,
Agreed that color often bridges across different hobbies and applications. The real question is: What is the color perceived when any paint color is laid on a dark verse light background?
In the OP’s case, it is key to know if the outcome was seen as “black” because the plastic color was black, shifting pullman green color to the “dark side” (couldn’t resist). Until this question is answered, there will be money and time spent on trying colors that look OK in the bottle, but fail when applied on a dark background.
BTW: Using black as a base color is a modeler’s trick to introduce highlighting in a model during the application of the top color coat. By playing with the angle of spray to intentionally not hit all of the crevices, the black color peeks through and also darkens the color being applied to a degree, depending on how thin you apply it. This technique is called “pre-shading”.
Finally, background color is most important when applying lighter colors such as yellows. For such "problem co
Joel,
I totally agree with You, about what He is starting out with as a base color to put the desired color on…makes all the difference in the world as to the final shade of the same color.
Experiment…
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
I can certainly understand how the base color could influence what shade of color I would get. I would expect to get a darker shade of green painting over black than I would with a white or gray primer base coat. But I didn’t get a dark shade of green. I got black. I got that using both Scalecoat Pullman Green as well as Brunswick Green. An earlier poster wrote that his experience is that Brunswick Green is very close to black which led me to wonder whether the can of Pullman Green I got was a can of Brunswick Green that had been mislabeled.
Today I picked up two different cans of spray paint that might turn out to be close to what I want based on the cap color. One I got at Michael’s, an arts and crafts store. The brand name is Liquitex and the color is Hooker’s Green (I didn’t make that up). In the store light, it looked close but might be a little too green. The other I got at Lowe’s and is Rustoleun’s Camoflage. It might be a little too drab. The only way to find out for sure is to try them with different backgrounds. I will paint each over black, white, and gray as well as over each other and hopefully get something acceptable.
The Scalecoat Pullman Green is gone. I can’t remember if I used it for some other purpose or whether I was so disgusted with the color I got I didn’t both to clear the nozzle after use and ended up throwing it out. Since I didn’t get what I wanted with it the first time, I see no reason to try it again. They don’t give that stuff away.
Well I’m not a big fan of rattle can spray paint for Models…so I won’t get into that…It does have it’s use’s…just not what I build.
Something to read through…scroll down to Color Context:
http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory
Good Luck! [:D]
Frank
To get to an answer from your method Frank, jecorbett needs to buy every bottle of paint that has the word green in the title, paint a sample of it on the right colored material and check to see what it looks like under his lighting conditions! So, unless you have done the above already, this doesn’t sound like a very efficient way to find what he needs to simulate Pullman Green.
I think i have found what I was looking for thanks to a suggestion by David Starr. Rustoleum’s Camoflage paint turned out to be a very close match to the green on my Walthers and Branchline heavyweight cars. To be a perfect match, it would need to be a shade or two darker, but I can live with it as is. I had my doubts because the cap color is even more drab than I wanted, almost grayish in tint, but the paint itself has just enough drab olive tint to be acceptable. By contrast, The Liquitex green I bought at Michael’s arts and crafts store was just too vivid green, even more so than the cap color. It cost $12 a can but it won’t go to waste because I have a non MR project that I can put it to use on. Thanks to all for the suggestions.
PS When I get a car painted, I will try to post some side-by-side pictures with a Walthers heavyweight so others can see how close a match it is. I discovered over the weekend the USB cable for my camera is damaged but if I can find my old 5 MP camera and cable I will swap the card from my 16 MP camera and try to use that to upload the pictures.
As Mr. Bernier mentioned, maybe you need to upgrade your lighting. As a photography major, one of the proplems we run into as modelers, is lighting. When choosing a paint, keep the following in mind:
Take a car that’s already Pullman green with you to the paint store. If you have tungsten lighting, and they have flourescent lighting at the paint store, it will look totally different. If you have daylight flourescent lighting, take some of the paint chips from the paint store outside and make your selection.
The problem isn’t my lighting, it was the paint I tried. All the RTR cars in my fleet look green. The one I painted with Scalecoat Pullman Green and later Brunswick Green appeared black. If the problem was my lighting, they would all appear too dark. I have ample lighting. I can’t create daylight in my basement and wouldn’t want to if I could because I don’t want to have to wear sunglasses when running my layout. Layout lighting is never going to replicate sunlight. It is much cheaper and more practical to match colors to the lighting rather than vice versa. What I needed to do was find a paint that would closely replicate the RTR heavyweight cars. I believe I have done that. It isn’t perfect match but it certainly looks far more realistic than the Pullman Green paint I started with.
I wasn’t implying creating daylight in your basement. Flourescent lights come in different temperatures, measured in degrees Kelvin. It closely replicates sunlight, where most standard low temp bulbs do not. That’s why when you photograph it with your camera set a daylight, the pictures have a greenish tint to them, whereas incandescent bulbs have a reddish (or orange) cast. I’m happy that you found a color that you’re content with. Another thing to consider is the color of your primer. If you spray a light colored primer, your final coat will look totally different if you use a dark primer with the same color final coat.
Wouldn’t the Rustolium O.D. be a flat color?