Full Side Freight Car Graffiti in HO

If you’re interested in having one of these cars painted for you, please visit www.weatheringman.com  

This is definately a trademark of my weathering business, and one I’m very proud to work on. Real cars like this are surprisingly prevalent in the modern scene, and each is a real astounding study in color and detail. So, let’s take a look at some graffiti.

Each of these takes more than a dozen hours of really careful detail painting and variety of specialized materials and techniques to capture the graffiti in HO scale. Some people try to do these cars using decals, but I believe it’s more engaging to paint them yourself. As far as I know, I’m one of the very few who take this route in HO or N scale.

It all started a few years ago with this test car, the Atom(ic) Age boxcar (the “IC” obscured by a replaced door) and caught the interest of a couple of clients of mine, who over the next couple of years would comission me to build the rest of the cars you’ll see here.

After a few smaller graffiti pieces, I was comissioned to do the quartet of cars you see above, each stylistically different from each other. Each one was painted using really tiny brushes following prototype photographs, each an exact copy.

Some, like the three you see here, are based off caligraphy.

The one below was one of my favorite projects, it was my first comissioned full car graffiti, and its challenge is something I still relish today when I’m working on my latest car, perhaps to be featured soon.

Even if you don’t like the graffiti, the attention to detail is still fascinating, at least to me.

What do you think of these cars?

The Coast Line at Gaviota

Here’s a painting I did few months ago, and I thought it might be worth sharing. It’s based on a photograph taken at Gaviota back in 2003 and the photographs of the entire coast line can be seen here at “Signals of the Coast Starlight Route”

To see a larger version of my painting, go here:
http://www.weatheringman.com/Painting.html

How to Make a Scale River, Lake, Harbor, or Just about any other body of Water

Now that we’ve covered size, shape and color theory of these necessary waterways, let’s move onto the modeling portion of this tutorial.

Our Main Ingredients are the following:

The “WATER”

For water, Woodland Scenics has been selling a horrendously overpriced product called “Realistic Water” which is actually just Acryllic Glazing Liquid used for painting light layers of paint on a painting. Learn more about Acrylic glazing liquid here. You can get this stuff by the GALLON for half the price of the bottle of WS product at Blick Art Supply.

This stuff is smelly, but not noxious. I would suggest opening a window if you want to model while you pour this stuff. It takes about 24 hours to dry and ONLY pour in 1/16″ depths. In all honesty, you really don’t need to pour this stuff deep, it looks fine on the surface.

Paint

Using color samples directly taken from the river via the satelite photos I posted in my previous article, I came up with this list of “necessary colors”

You can explore the ‘zillions’ of other colors out there; here.

The Colors I used to paint the River are mostly from Benjamin Moore’s “Color Sample” paint jars. These 3oz Jars cost about $3-4 and cover a 2X2 foot area if used completely. Yu can get these at a well-stocked hardware store, or a Home Improvement warehouse.
The other colors in the 2oz containers are the $1 craft paints you can get from any craft store.

The Colors Are:
-Dark Green: “Mohegan Sage” (Ben #2138-30)
-Tan: “Monroe Bisque” (Ben# HC-26)
-Sky Blue: “Yarmouth Blue” (Ben#HC-150)
-Dark Brown: “Clinton Brown” (Ben#HC-72)
Craft Paint:
-Navy Blue
-Sand Stone

Optional Regional colors:
for Clay rivers, use “Terra Cotta”
for black use “Asphaltum” (which is a very dark brown. Avoid black at ALL COSTS)

Prepping the Riverbed, Lakebed, or Harbor.

You can approach this two ways:

1. Involves laying down a flat piece of particle board, adding the riverbanks in, then painting the surface and adding the acryllic glaze, then finally adding ripples with acrylic gloss medium. This is good for wide, deep rivers, harbors, lakes and channels.

2. For creeks and shallow or seasonal rivers that vary wildly in depth year-round, or a river that has a lot of sandbars or islands, try this method: (READ MORE) <-Will be written about tomorrow

Painting Technique:

Gently blend your sand color and your brown colors the farther from shore you get, then blend the brown into the green, and finally add navy blue in the center if this is a deep river. (See the color chart above)

Let this dry overnight to see if the colors you blended looks satisfactory. Make sure that all blends between colors are SEAMLESS, and don’t have a distinct break in color, unless you’re modeling underwater vegetation like Algae in the deep log pond (above) or brown coastal seaweed.

Southern Pacific Common Standard #23 Depot in LEGO

The exceptionally restored and modernized Southern Pacific Common Standard Depot #23 located in Centerville, Calif. was re-created in LEGO’s at the BayAreaLUG modular layout. I approached the builder and complimented on the excellent, prototypical work he had done, which he appreciated. Being one to play with LEGOs from time to time, I can only imagine how expensive all of those specialized bricks were, such as the green roofing material and all of those minifigures.

Here’s the depot in LEGO, below is the photo of the actual depot. Note some of the more interesting details have been captured on the model as well!

Here’s some detail shots of the Depot.

And one of the roof and train-order signal

Altogether an excellent project in LEGO worthy of a modeling award.

Start Researching Railroads Today!

IF you’re new to the hobby or just getting back into the fascinating world of locomotives, railroads and history, be sure to check out these awesome websites. They are indispensable to the beginner and advanced modeler or historian alike.

To learn all about steam locomotive and find surviving locomotives all ’round the world, look here:
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/

Love geared logging locomotives like the Shay, Heisler and Climax, or want to know what a geared steam locomotive is? Check out http://www.gearedsteam.com/index.html  

Switching Locomotives
http://yardlimit.railfan.net/ They have some of the most obscure and famous (practically all North American Switchers) listed with photos.

With excellent photos of nearly every type of rolling stock or locomotive pictured somewhere on this extensive site, you can’t help but spend hours looking through all these photos!

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/

Want to learn about the big four locomotive builders? (Baldwin, Lima, ALCo, EMD) or some of the most obscure American and world locomotive companies?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Locomotive_manufacturers

For mainline Diesels, check out the locomotive manufactures listings on Wikipedia (It’s actually a pretty reliable source nowadays)
For GM EMD products, like the SW9, look at the bottom of the page for the manufactured locomotive listing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-Motive_Diesel
http://www.sdrm.org/roster/diesel/emd/history/

If you like those smoky Alco’s check this out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ALCO_diesel_locomotives
http://alcoworld.railfan.net/specindx.htm
Or if you’re a Baldwin Fan, check this out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Locomotive_Works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Baldwin_locomotives
http://baldwindiesels.railfan.net/contents.html

To research a specific railroad, find the Yahoo! group that corresponds to your favorite railroad and join that. For example the “Espee” group os the better of the two Southern Pacific RR groups, and the ATSF group is the Santa Fe oriented ones.

You can even join a group that talks about modeling a specific industry, like the “Citrus Modelers” yahoo group.

If you want to know accurate information about freight cars, visit these two sites:

Steam Era Freight Car Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/

Modern Freight Car Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFCL/

MODERN MECHANIX

A fun website for all the people that visit my website!

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/

Beautiful 3D CAD Rendering of MY Gas Station Plans.

Came as quite a surprise, when I was linked to a TurboCad Forum a couple days ago, I discovered a 3D rendering of The Classic Walther’s ADM Concrete Grain Elevator (To be featured next) based entirely on a photo from my website. After contacting the 3D artist, I was even more pleasantly surprised when not two days later, he posted THIS!

Based on my Published plans for my 1920’s era Gas station, he added the flair of a classic TEXACO gas station of the 1940’s!

Nearly every detail was captured flawlessly, from the multi-paneled doors, to the strikingly beautiful gas pumps. He even captured the beauty of a nicely shingled roof. His artistic addition was the illuminated TEXACO drum head hanging above the awning, an excellent and attractive touch.

Link to the Scale drawings: http://modelrailroading.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/scale-gas-station-drawings/

Mr. Cheke has an impressive website, of which one can can quickly spend a lot of time exploring. Visit it here at www.textualcreations.ca His robust 3D artistry is surely eye-catching!

The fabled #1- Vertical Boilered Geared Locomotive, A full sized Kitbash

A fully functional kit bashing project, using REAL steam locomotive parts, and a Stanley Steam Automobile engine, mounted vertically (as opposed to being bathed in an oil pan in the car) this wood-fired locomotive is as down and dirty simple as a steam locomotive can get, and the “One Spot” as it’s called is the working classroom that has taught dozens of people how to operate a steam locomotive. As of Saturday afternoon, Included amongst those hallowed few is our fledgling fireman, Scott, another member of the Hillcret and Watoke, and Yours truly, the Author of Interacting With Miniature Railroading.

This fantastic locomotive was built by the steam nuts at the Glennwood South Park & Pacific located “somewhere” in the Santa Cruz Mountains back in the 1970’s.

This is Jay, The Engineer who helped build the #1 way back when, he taught me (not in the picture) how to run the #1.

The #1 is a 15″ gauge locomotive with more history in it’s parts alone than most full-sized locomotives.

It Includes:

-The Reversing Lever is the oil firing valve from a SP Cabforward Mallet

-The Gong is from a Key System Street Car (*Might be from San Francisco& San Jose Motor car too)

-  The Throttle Lever is from a Climax Geared Locomotive.

-The Brake lever is from a Short line steam locomotive.

-The Whistle is from a Norwegian Railways Steamer. It’s the best sounding whistle on the railroad!

-The Boiler is from an industrial plant in Colorado

-The Oil lubricator is from a DRGW steam locomotive.

The Labeled Backhead of the #1

1. Steam driven hammer for the bell gong

2. Oil lubricators for the gong

3. Stanley Automobile (Steam) engine 

4. Throttle lever from Climax locomotive

5. Reverser is actually oil feed lever from SP cab-forward mallet, AC class.

6. Water check valve

7. Brake lever (steam driven, not air pressure)

8.  Water level glass

9. Blower

10. Steam Pressure gauge (pop-valve set at 150 psi)

11. Whole pipe assembly of water injection system, small lever is water injector, non-visible red valve is water supply injector.

12. Clean-out plug for boiler

13. Small supply of wood stowed in wood pile, built as part of water tank

14. Fully-operational handbrake system.

15. Hole for water tank. (A cushy leather seat fits like a cork atop the hole.

16. Water tank drain valve.

17. Gong from SF&SJ electric interurban, shrouded in steam.

18. “pop” Safety Valve, set at 150 psi.

——————————————————————————-

This closeup of the Stanley Steam Automobile Engine shows it’s unique vertical mounting, and the scratchbuilt drain cocks built out of the copper tubing you see snaking out of the cylinders. This locomotive is designed like a horizontal two cylinder Hiesler, but instead of a drive-shaft connecting the wheels, it’s directly geared to the axle of the first wheel, and is chain driven to power all four wheels of this 0-4-0T.

The black box in front of the engine is for the Sand supply.

——————————————————————

This beautifully functional 15″ gauge, 5″ scale, vertical boilered masterpiece is reflective of California’s rich logging history, and somewhat representative of their down and dirty designs they implemented to drag logs out of the woods. This locomotive is also able to be hooked up to a steam-driven sawmill, specially designed with the #1 so it can cut its own wood supply!

Niles Depot Stained Glass & Lanterns

 

The San Jacinto Branch: Backdrop Test

Teaching yourself to paint a backdrop is a lot of fun. The best part is that if you have the paint, the brushes, water, a damp rag, and your backdrop material, you’re set to go.

There have been plenty of books on how to paint backdrops, and personally, the one I most enjoyed was the backdrop article that accompanied the magnificient Alkali Central project layout done by the staff at Model Railroader back in December 1995.

Another good resource was the 2003ish cover story MR article about how to paint backdrops in Colorado.

Of course, no amount of reading will pay off unless you don’t pick up a brush, like I did.

I just did a small 8X10 inch space to see what colors I wanted to use, what scene I wanted to portray, and how I wanted to blend everything together.

It’s not superdetailed, and it doesn’t have to be. However it has to be done with colors that either COMPLIMENT or MATCH the layout in front of the backdrop. the line of trees is obviously a continuation of the orange grove that exists on my layout. you can see that the grove goes downhill, out of sight, then reappears on a second hill behind the larger trees. The line of darker trees in the middle left are trees being used as windbreaks, usually gum trees.

I has an interesting dilemma: I ran out of black before I started, so I thought logically. For any point above my horizon line, which is where the orange grove stops, I used dark blue as my shadow color, anything below the horizon line I used a dark brown. I think it was successful, don’t you think?

You can see that the snow atop the distant mountians isn’t snow white…that’s because of the air between the mountain and the viewer is somewhat obscured by desert sand and dirt, creating that hazy look.

If I was modeling the LA basin, I probably would have only drawn a faint outline for the mountains, due to to smog, which was the worst in the L.A. basin in 1948 than at any other time before or SINCE. It got so bad, many people were getting VERY sick, so politicians were called called to action. The Smog being so bad was mainly due to the (now banned) trash incenerators, power plants, and vehicles, and oil from orange grove smudge pots.  

It’s amazing what a difference just what just a blue backdrop makes, but It’s really stunning what a difference a range of painted mountains, orange groves, and hills make.

Now that I’ve got my basic plan for what I want my backdrops to look like, It’s time to get some more backdrop material and paint so I can do the rest of my layout.