As per title I am a middle aged modeler returning to the hobby after some years of absence.
I searched threads - I did not find specifcally what I was looking for. I apologize in advance if this Paint topic is over discussed. In the meantime I am airbrushing and detailing a number of box cars etc to get back into the swing of things. Although not news here - I was stunned by the demise of Floquil / Scalecoat.
Read - downloaded (already) a number of PDF conversion charts on Vallejo paints. The one by Joe Fugate was a great start. Very satisfied with the paints - very nice to work with. Charts helped.
However when looking for “Box car Red” I came accross Vallejo Red Brown AND German Red Brown at the local hobby shop. Undecided i took both and mixed them 50-50. Seems one is a slight hue lighter. Satisfied with results - looks accurate albiet a “little” lighter than expectation; however should just save on weathering as the combo looks slightly faded by weather.
Interested in any “secret not in PDF color conversion” ideas/prototype charts/suggestion charts since expanded:
Box Car Red
CN Red (1980s)- Orange appears way too orange for my tastes in bottle
Gondola Greys (CN other)
Burlington Northern Cascade Green 1980s
CP Red ( again appears off to me in bottle ) 1980s
Any suggestions or links welcome. There may be a PDF or article on the internet I missed on “more specific accurate Vallejo prototype mixes”
Since you seem primarily interested in Canadian railways, you may want to check out Tru-Color Paints. The line is made by Rapido, a (relatively new) Canadian manufacturer that primarily produces top-of-the-line models of Canadian trains. It’s available thru Walthers and many hobby shops.
Welcome back. If you’re looking for non-acrylic paint, Scalecoat is still with us, thankfully. It is available from www.minutemanscalemodels.com. I just received an order about two months ago.
Rapido webpage shows all Protopaints as ‘out of stock’. I found a webpage for “George’s Trains” where they sell “Proto-Paint”, which seems to be the same paint - primarily Canadian paint colors. Not sure if George’s makes it and Rapido was distributor at one time or what?
IIRC: One of George’s Trains employees took a job at Rapido. He convinced Jason Shron to take over the paint line from George’s.
Recently the product was “suspended”, and they are reviewing the business case for it. One of the many problems they ran into was sourcing the bottles. They had to be imported from France as they couldn’t find anyone in North America making a suitable bottle.
I bought a couple of bottles at a hobby shop. In fact, I bought their entire inventory. The rack now sits empty.
Yes I am a “Canuck” in the Toronto Area; I will most definately check out Georges Trains ( one of two landmark Train shops in the Greater Toronto Area).
May be forced to drop Vallejo though I really like the paints.
Kevin
I started at the ‘local hobby shop’ and got the Vallejo paints. Not really a ‘train’ shop though he had a few odds and ends.
You specifically mention colour charts for CN CP and BN (mid 1980s?).
Do you have a link for those charts ?
That was something I was looking for - the specific or line specific mixes. The charts I downloaded /reviewed did not have a lot of detail specific to those three lines… most were sort of generic
(albiet UP Armor Yellow was well documented…popularity no doubt) [:)]
The Orange is “too orange” for CN Red/Orange on the nose (opinion)
The Green is “too forest” for BN Cascade Green (opinion)
The Red for CP Rail looks close
German Red Brown and Red Brown 50-50 did a great job on box cars giving them a slightly ‘sun faded look’… it was air brushing a few box cars that sold me on Vallejo.
I do not know if a primer coat is “required” or not.
As I have developed my painting skill/style I have found that a Matte Black primer coat gives me the best results. As such, I prime everything that I am going to brush paint with a coat of black.
Every experienced figure painter you ask will give you a different answer.
Marike Reimer is my favorite figure painter. I follow her techniques and advice as closely as my skills will allow.
If you Google her name, you can see what I mean.
She used to have a bunch of How-To videos on YouTube, but since she started her own brand I think those are gone.
I also find that Vallejo does not stick as well as Proto-paint and Polly scale (which I think were the same manufacturer). I’m not sure it’s too critical for structures, but I prime all my rolling-stock before painting with Vallejo.
I primarily use Vallejo paints for painting figures and I found it does work better with a primer or other layer of paint already on the figure.
Since right now I’m primarily painting seated figures for passenger cars I save time by spraying the figures with Tamiya spray can paints, then use those colors as the main color of the figure’s clothes.
So like Walthers seated comes with 4 sprues, each with the same 18 figures. I might spray one sprue gray, one brown, one blue and one green…whatever paints I have on hand from other projects.
The Vallejo paint brushes on better with the sprayed on paint than on bare plastic, and it saves a lot of time and effort. In some cases, just painting the face, hair and hands is all that’s needed, since the seated figures won’t be all that visible anyway.
As for paint seeming “off”, that’s often due to lighting conditions. Many times you will hear people saying, “The manufacturer says they matched it to a paint sample/official specification but it doesn’t look right.” That’s because our indoor lights don’t match sun light, weather conditions vary (amount of overcast, time of day, etc) and because prototype paint fades in the sun. Plus we all see color differently (If you want to start a flame war, say you have the absolutely correct recipe for PRR’s Dark Green Locomotive Enamel aka “Brunswick Green” or for PRR’s Freight Car Color - that was its name for “Boxcar Red”). And to make matters worse, if you take some cars that look fine to you on your layout, to your buddy’s pike, they may look “off” under its lighting system (Maybe we need an NMRA Recommended Practice on layout lighting?)
Bottom line - choose the model paint that works best for you and if that doesn’t satisfy, experiment with your own home brewed mixture (using scrap plastic or cars you don’t mind maybe having to strip and repaint), both under your layout’s lights.
I bought a bottle of Vallejo Model Color Dark Sand yesterday. I will apply it today without priming the styrene first. How the heck do you get a paint brush into the small bottle? Yikes!
I’m assuming this is a joke, but anyway, just squeeze a drop or two of paint onto or into something, then dip the brush in that. I use a small clear plastic “cup” left over from a blister pack of some small item or another I bought a while back. I assume some art manufacturer makes small palettes or something you could use too.
I remember in the early days of Stewart they came out with a Burlington Route F-unit that was painted based on an actual CB&Q chip. The engines were roughly primer gray, but in photos the real engines looked white because of the difference of bright sunlight compared to indoor lighting. Many folks and reviewers complained about the color, although it was technically correct.
I read that our model ‘cousins’ who do military modeling often add white to the ‘correct’ shade of paint to compensate for the lighting difference between sunlight and artificial light.