re: Model Railroading

1955 Lionel
Smoke still works
Cattle car still works

I guess we all start out life shitting ourselves and playing with toy trains and it sounds like we will end it the same way.

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Is that GI set in scale with the 3 3/4" figures?

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No, it comes w/ the tiny green army men

Surprised this thread made it 3 pages without the jo on rails ad being posted

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Such as with DN alcohol or IPA?

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No, like dishwashing soap (Dawn) and warm water. Chances are there is some sort of chemical on them that was used as a release agent to help separate the mini from the mold. Cleaning them will make it far easier to have paints stick to the surface.

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What's the rule of thumb here. Pick a similar color to what the mini will end up mostly being?

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Yeah…like if you’re painting a brown shirt…maybe start with your darkest or second darkest brown. You can be sort of messy in this step, then touch things up once all of it is basecoated in the appropriate colors.

I usually try to paint the largest area of one color first, then work from there. Also, I generally try to work from the inside out. Meaning, if there is a spot where you have to work “around” another part of the mini, paint that first so you’re not accidentally hitting an area you’ve already painted. Might make for less touch up work.

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Can you touch on this a little more?

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You’ve done your basecoat…then you’ve washed/shaded. That should give your piece some dark tones, which adds visual depth. Highlighting would be coming back with your original color to star bringing out more depth, and then you can go hitting higher areas with lighter tones of your basecoat color, either with premixed paints or by simply adding a little white to your base color.

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Is this the same as highlighting above?

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For the most part. Dry brushing is quick and easy, and does pretty good work. There are more advanced techniques like edge highlighting that give pretty awesome results. I try them, and do okay sometimes. Still working on my brush stroke for that. I think I’m too imprecise, heavy handed, and impatient to get really good at it.


Other tips I forgot to mention earlier.

Thin your paints.
Chances are you’ll have to paint multiple layers to get appropriate coverage as well.

Few folks on YouTube I like: Midwinter Minis, Squidmar, and Ninjon.

They’re are plenty out there, though.

Rc airplane

If you like model railroading, you need to come to Gulfport, Ms and see the awesome model museum


LINK

Where do you live I’ll send you a bunch of stuff