I plan to paint my Southern locomotive but I am not going to use basic black . I think I will airbrush either ‘weathered’ or ‘engine’ black for a better used look. Which would look better based on your experience?
I prefer Engine Black myself, Weathered Black has too much grey in it for me. I would rather paint it to look realitivly new, then age and weather over the base paint. Of course, that is only one opinion.
Having been painting professionally for almost twenty years I can state that MY personal choice is for a faded or greyed black. The reason, most layouts can not be lighted as bright as daylight so there has to be a way to give the illusion of brighter light shining on the locomotives. A true black loco, in most room lighting, will look like a black blob with no detail being seen. However , due to the way our eyes compensate for the lack of brightness, a greyer locomotive appears black and and all details can be seen and it looks correct. I don’t use either color you have specified, I mix my own shades of black from scalecoat engine black and graphite and oil. Generally in a three or four to one ratio. This gives a shade that comes across as black but doesn’t hide the details. In my mind the weathered black (floquil?) comes across with a shade of purple in it.
I live in IC country and the black on IC engines doesn’t weather like weathered black. It gets dirty. I would try painting with engine black and overspraying with something like floquil dust. Dark colors weather more toward light browns and light color tend to weather more toward grays in my opinion.
It really is a matter of personal opinion and taste, but to my mind, engine black is too intense a black for even a freshly painted loco, and weathered black has too much of a purple hue. What works for me is a mix of grimy black and engine black,usually either 50-50 or 60 % grimy black, 40% engine black as a base coat. The 50-50 for a fresh clean engine and the 60-40 for one that’s been in service for a while. Either lightens the color enough so details are clearly visible and compensates for the scale effect of colors appearing lighter at a distance.
It is the same thing in real life. A black loco just doesn’t photograph well as it absorbs all the light. May as well be a black hole. That is why I suggested the dust overspray. When I paint my PRR steam which is almost black I spray the running gear with dust and the ashbox with a litlle antique white. I also spray the top of the boiler and cab with graphite to represent an engine that has been run some. It definitely brings out the details.
I painted a couple steam locomotives engine black. I love the effecf of that color! I took the plastic look away, and made it look much more real. I also used some silver paint on a few of the detail parts, and that engine really looks sharp.
It’s illuminated with flouresant bulbs and the camera’s flash.
http://www.mtco.com/~brault1/pictures/0-8-0%20switcher%202.jpg (About 150k in size)
P prefer engine black and then using various colors and shades of those colors to emphasize certain areas during the weathering process. I think the all grimy black (too greenish) or weathered black (too purplish) just doesn’t look “right”.
I prefer to start a dark-colored object with the darkest color that will be on the object and go lighter and lighter for highlights and drybrush coats, with a darker wa***o reinforce the base color without wiping out the highlights. That way, a dark object (engine or whatnot) looks dark and black but with lighter highlights to illuminate the details the way that intense sunlight would.
I’ll give dehusman credit for this one. I asked about Norfolk Southern Black and he said “it’s not a weathered color, try engine black”.
cjcrescent,
Your color mix sounds good. I am courious on exactly how you mix them.
“I mix my own shades of black from scalecoat engine black and graphite and oil. Generally in a three or four to one ratio.”
How much of each of the three items do you mix? Your ratio, is this a ratio of the mixed black’s to oil? And what oil do you recommend?
Engine Black. Then weather down to the shade you want.
I never liked any steam engines painted anything but BLACK. Grey tones fade the engine too much, and seem to me to be a mark of someone who has never seen a real steam engine. I have (several times!), and they’re always BLACK. The paint on a steamer doesn’t weather the same over the entire engine, so while you’ll have an area that’s grimy grey, and another scale white, other areas of the engine will still be so glossy black that it hurts to look at it.
I prefer using Polly Scales Steam Power Black, which has a slightly blueish, oily sheen. I them weather to taste, usnig the weathering coat to bring out the highlights and details of the model.
You should make the black paint for the locomotive out of 52% engine black, 45% grimey black, 3% earth, and a few frops of what ever other color to tone it to what you want it to look like. For example, if I painted a C&O greenbrier, I imagine it with a blui***inge, so I add a few drops of ATSF blue into the mix. This will keep the base color light enough to be seen with out super intense room lighting.
Put me in the engine black column. My railroad is located in “sunny southern California” so I thin the black with a bit of grimey black and some dust brown. Then weather with chalks and finish with a spraying of dullcote.
Randy
Oh yeah…For a general “lighting up” of an already black locomotive, you can thoroughly swab it with rubbing alcohol. After it dries, hit it with the dullcote from all angles. Then mist more alcohol on it. Then dullcote some more. Let it cure. There you go. It works like magic, instantly “grayer”!
I plan to paint my Southern locomotive but I am not going to use basic black . I think I will airbrush either ‘weathered’ or ‘engine’ black for a better used look. Which would look better based on your experience?
I prefer Engine Black myself, Weathered Black has too much grey in it for me. I would rather paint it to look realitivly new, then age and weather over the base paint. Of course, that is only one opinion.
Having been painting professionally for almost twenty years I can state that MY personal choice is for a faded or greyed black. The reason, most layouts can not be lighted as bright as daylight so there has to be a way to give the illusion of brighter light shining on the locomotives. A true black loco, in most room lighting, will look like a black blob with no detail being seen. However , due to the way our eyes compensate for the lack of brightness, a greyer locomotive appears black and and all details can be seen and it looks correct. I don’t use either color you have specified, I mix my own shades of black from scalecoat engine black and graphite and oil. Generally in a three or four to one ratio. This gives a shade that comes across as black but doesn’t hide the details. In my mind the weathered black (floquil?) comes across with a shade of purple in it.
I live in IC country and the black on IC engines doesn’t weather like weathered black. It gets dirty. I would try painting with engine black and overspraying with something like floquil dust. Dark colors weather more toward light browns and light color tend to weather more toward grays in my opinion.