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Emily laid bare: A Stirling effort


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So by now the original body has been reduced to a 'waffer thin' remnant of a small proportion of the orignal, acting as an underlying skeleton for hand made parts. It's been great fun to watch.

...As for darling sweet Emily...

This is all beginning to make sense of Paul Simon's (quite probably substance induced) 'For Emily, whenever I may find her'...

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I have considered it, but my philosophy throughout it to use Emily as a learning experience and I consider painting to be part of this learning experience. My experiences (good and bad) could also benefit others.

I like the philosophy. I consider it very brave after the amount of work you've put in, but I can totally understand it

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The reason I am dreading reproducing the later GNR livery can be explained by presenting a number of images of the preserved Stirling Single and Ivatt Atlantic.

 

Unfortunately I do not have many reference images of my own and have had to resort to search t'internet for suitable images.

 

A regular contributer here on RMWeb is Rob Pulham who not only is a very talented modeller, but he also takes the time to take prototype photos and upload them to flickr. Unlike a lot of photos uploaded there these are full size, high resolution and I have found them invaluable. If you don't believe me have look at his albums here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpulham/sets/

 

In order to illustrate the GNR livery in this thread, Rob has kindly given me permission to reproduce some of his images here, however be aware that I have "tweaked" them and reduced them in size. If you want to see the originals you will have to browse his albums.

 

First off some images of the Single:

post-3717-0-47626600-1423950322_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-29775700-1423950323_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-11052300-1423950324_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-98610600-1423950324_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-96919400-1423950325_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-97046800-1423950329_thumb.jpg

 

This photo is of the "new" tender for the Single (i.e. the one I have based Emily's on):

post-3717-0-92726000-1423950330_thumb.jpg

 

Here are some photos of the Ivatt Atlantic tender showing the two tone greens with intricate lining:

post-3717-0-98535000-1423950326_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-06519100-1423950328_thumb.jpg

 

post-3717-0-04575800-1423950329_thumb.jpg

 

 

Thank you Rob.

 

So my issue is where on earth do I start? What sequence do I apply the colours? How am I going to reproduce the fine lining? Of course if I delay long enough Jason will have his 3D prints back and beat me to it then I can copy him!

 

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Is there a surviving official shade/name for the darker green on the tender?

 

I'd definitely begin with the lighter green, assuming a spray painting job. I would imagine that the brown, the dark green and the black would suffer less from application over any grass green overspray than would the grass green over the darker tones. Unless you're keen to do some elaborate masking.....

 

Jokes about primer thickness aside, I reckon you're doing a cracking/fascinating job here.

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Hi Graeme, I keep reading the phrase "Holly Green". As far as I can tell (and I'm no means an expert), there wasn't a single consistent shade across the years and paint shops. I read in one book that if you got a number of locos together, the different shades of green could be quite noticeable. It didn't help that the green was described as "to standard". I think Mike's idea of matching to say the Hornby or Bachmann (Atlantic when it arrives) livery would be a good start. At least everything will look consistent.

 

Oh, and I've absolutely no plans to paint mine until after you've done yours. :)

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I'd definitely begin with the lighter green, assuming a spray painting job. I would imagine that the brown, the dark green and the black would suffer less from application over any grass green overspray than would the grass green over the darker tones. Unless you're keen to do some elaborate masking......

I would tend to agree that common sense is to do the lighter green first, then spray the darker green. I am worried that masking might pull the light green and primer off the plastic body. Lining would then take place and will be "interesting".

 

The problem is I do not have that much faith in my painting ability to do a job that Emily deserves (I am not a Coachmann) so I am thinking outside the box.

 

What I am thinking is to spray the darker green first, then produce transfers on the computer on white transfer paper that include the lighter green panel with the white/black/white lining, cut out carefully, and float into position. If I am printing the lighter green I can cheat and include the lettering at the same time. The difficulty will be matching the shade of green to the painted loco however with people not being able to do a direct side-by-side comparison I suspect the shades can vary slightly. Anyway that is what I am tending towards at the moment.

 

As Jason (the coward) has said it makes sense to try and match the colours used to existing GNR Hornby locos. I have used Vallejo acrylics successfully before and am a great fan of them, but have never seen them used for a locomotive. They do spray well and I can get them easily from Ian Allan.

 

I have carried out some experiments with Vallejo colours over a grey primer base (oh and Graeme, I am still on the same rattle can of primer) and have determined that 70.968 Flat Green is good for the lighter green, 70.975 Military Green for the darker green with 70.859 Black Red for the lake frames.

 

Official names for the colours? Jury is still out on that one. I have seen so many terms quoted for the greens, few if any I suspect being "official".

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How about painting in the light green, lining in white/black/white and then painting the dark green panels up to the black central line. Then line again over the first lining. I've done the first part of that and it's not too bad, not sure whether or not the overlining would be too thick.

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I would paint the base colours and then add the lining over the top of the colours. If judged correctly the lining would blend the colours together. The idea of printing the Tender panel sounds good , the only problem I can think off is matching the colours with the other painted areas . 

The lining black/white/white is viable with the HMRS LNER Lining sheets most of the shapes are on the sheet, sadly the red  thereon is total rubbish far too opaque.

The only good thing is the wheels aren't lined otherwise good luck !!!

 

 

Cracking job Mike , whatever happened to the Dyno car ?

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I would paint the base colours and then add the lining over the top of the colours. If judged correctly the lining would blend the colours together. The idea of printing the Tender panel sounds good , the only problem I can think off is matching the colours with the other painted areas . 

The lining black/white/white is viable with the HMRS LNER Lining sheets most of the shapes are on the sheet, sadly the red  thereon is total rubbish far too opaque.

The only good thing is the wheels aren't lined otherwise good luck !!!

 

 

Cracking job Mike , whatever happened to the Dyno car ?

Yes colour matching might be a problem. There is an added complication in that the white transfer is slightly translucent and the darker undercolour would bleed through. Still I don't lose anything for trying (other than printer ink). Black/white/white? White/Black/White should be very easy to produce myself, the red less so assuming I attempt the red.

 

The wheels ARE lined, with a fine black line. In reality I will probably turn a blind eye to that one.

 

Dyno car? Sitting in my cupboard waiting for me to get in the mood.

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It's also possible to buy clear transfer paper and paint with the darker colour, line the panels, that way the dark colour will match the loco, as it's the same paint, applied on top of the same light base colour, so it should be a perfect match? - That way if you c*ck it up it's only on a piece of transfer paper. Lining with transfers should also cover the loin, or it can be lined with pen before cutting out.

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The idea of printing the Tender panel sounds good , the only problem I can think off is matching the colours with the other painted areas .

Printing a convincing colour match would certainly be one of my concerns, along with getting the colour dense enough to hide the colour beneath. Resistance to fading - or matching the fading to that of true painted areas - would also worry me. I'd be very interested to see whether Mike has solutions to these potential problems as his methods might be very handy for other livery challenges.

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Printing a convincing colour match would certainly be one of my concerns, along with getting the colour dense enough to hide the colour beneath. Resistance to fading - or matching the fading to that of true painted areas - would also worry me. I'd be very interested to see whether Mike has solutions to these potential problems as his methods might be very handy for other livery challenges.

Agreed.

 

A lot depends on your printer, what you print onto, and how you treat it afterwards. I have a Canon Pixma IP8500 which produces some wonderful images. General wisdom is to treat the resulting prints with a UV filter spray and/or varnish so I will be doing both in the course of making the transfers waterproof and sealing to the model.

 

Between various decorating bouts I have managed to have a play.

 

You have heard of 50 shades of grey, well here are 30 shades of green. A strip of different greens was printed, then the closest selected. Further variations were then tried based on the selected initial colour, reprinted and the process repeated:

post-3717-0-00252800-1424020048_thumb.jpg

 

Not perfect yet, but getting nearer:

post-3717-0-62607700-1424020360_thumb.jpg

 

I have a hope that if the two greens do differ slightly (or one fades) that distance between the two shades (one on t'loco and the other on the tender panels) will make differences less obvious:

post-3717-0-59843300-1424020049_thumb.jpg

 

So here is a proof-of-concept printed on 2440 dpi paper and cut out as if it was the transfer:

post-3717-0-61654600-1424020055_thumb.jpg

 

I think it shows promise, and someone has to try it.

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