I like to give my models a good running-in and problem-solving period before going anywhere near paint, but after a couple of months of testing I felt ready to press on with the M&SWJR loco. Another factor was that, for a few days at least, it wasn't either cold or chucking it down. 

After cleaning up the loco as best I could,  I applied a coat of Tamiya matt black from a rattle can, then went over this carefully taking care of any blemishes highlighted by the paint. I reapplied the black where it was needed. I allowed the base coat to bake on well by leaving the model outside on the one or two warm days we had last week. 

I've had pretty good results brush-painting GWR green directly over black, but for this model I decided to break out the airbrush. As I'd only used it a week or so earlier to touch-up part of the backscene on Cogirep, I knew that my Devilbiss was "good to go" so that was the chosen tool for the job. It's a really nice airbrush which is perhaps more suited to fine art than model spraying, as the reservoir on the top won't hold that much paint, but for a small loco like the 2-4-0 it's fine. I prepared a small batch of diluted Precision GWR green which goes on with a nice semi-matt/satin finish.

I was very pleased with the overall finish of the paint, and feel that it was worth the trouble of using the airbrush, which can be a bit of a faff with paint clogging, spatter etc, if it's in a bad mood.

Once the green was on, I brush-painted the remaining black bits, and have since added the buffer beams. All that really remains, besides final detailing, coal, crew, etc, is to look in my boxfile of transfers for some suitable "Great Western" style ones, then buy some appropriate number plates from 247.