MikeOxon

I came across JCL's splendid thread about Silhouette cutters (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79025-a-guide-to-using-the-silhouette-cameo-cutter/) at an appropriate interval for dropping heavy hints before Christmas, so now have a 'Silhouette Portrait' machine and loads of ideas for coaches and buildings Having discovered all about Cleminson chassis in an earlier post on this blog, I want to build some six-wheel coaches, especially since they seem to be rarely modelled, probably because of the difficulties of getting them round curves! The first step is to decide on suitable prototype(s) and I have put out a call for help about earlier diagrams, in the GWR forum. As an example, this is an early standard gauge coach, converted from broad gauge. At least, I think that is the story - Russell's 'GWR Coaches part 1' states (p.22) that these were built in 1882 for the broad gauge but that the photo was taken much later in standard gauge days. In which case, it seems odd to me that the oil lamps are still on the sides of the clerestory. I coloured the old photo using the same techniques I used for the Garter Crest, as described in my Lining & Lettering entries. I hope to share some of my experiences with the 'Silhouette' in my next post.. Mike edited to add more info about the illustrated coach I have now found Richard Spratt's splendid website at http://www.penrhos.m...chesIntro.shtml His site contains a mine of information about GWR short coaches and has answered all my queries so far. I now know that the coach illustrated above is to diagram U29, of which 12 were built in 1886.

Many thanks for the soldering info - the double-sided tape is a great idea Mike

"I wonder if IT advances might help us one day, eg running thousands of photos through computers to analyse and establish tiny differences in the colours" There's just an outside chance that something like this could become technically possible! There was a photographic process called the Lippmann colour plate, which relied on standing wave patterns being set up in a very fine-grained emulsion. The original colours could be seen by diffraction, when the plate was viewed in reflected light. Perhaps, the standing wave patterns in a normal plate could be enhanced in some way to give an indication of what colours were present. I doubt, however, whether GWR wagons will provide enough financial incentive for the necessary research Mike

I'm very impressed with your balcony and how you 'soldered it up' Whenever I try something like that, the older joints come apart as I try to make later ones! How do you hold it all together for soldering? Mike

"But oh, if I had a laser cutter now!" One of my Xmas prezzies is a 'Silhouette' cutter, which I'm hoping will provide a solution to this type of problem. See the thread at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79025-a-guide-to-using-the-silhouette-cameo-cutter/ Mike

I notice you use a range of specialist lubricants, which I trust did their job well. The wheels on your 0-10-0.in the set-up pic look a little distorted - especially the trailing pair on the RHS. Great Stuff- keep it going into the New year Mike

Great to see an overview and the individual scenes look splendid! I'm sure your visitors will be impressed! Even the chairs in the background look like camp chairs Mike

100 posts! - congratulations. Good luck with your DCC problem - I've stayed with DC to avoid these brain-teasers Mike

I followed the link and was amused by some of their descriptions - worthy of e-bay's best! How about: "It would have been in mint condition but the varnish is lifting on the GNSR to one side of the train" and, on the same item "Comes in a Hornby box but this is not the original one"

It might be "a tin box on wheels" but it has a very purposeful look and I agree with you that it looks quite very good! Mike

I think if we waited to know it all, we'd never do any modelling! I can see why many modellers build a specific engine, with a large collection of photos in front of them! If you get really carried away, it would have to be a specific engine on a specific day There have been some very elaborate short-lived liveries. For example, when the Dean Singles were first introduced, they had green boiler bands edged with orange and then flanked with black and, finally, orange again! In the smaller scales, I doubt whether anyone could resolve all this detail. Mike

Thank you, Petertg. You are right - that is an option for my printer and I haven't tried it! I rarely print my own photos and only started making myown transfers recently, so I'll have to explore further. Mike

I had one of these vans as a kid - the opening doors gave great 'play value'

You're right! Should have made the rafters from wooden barbecue sticks

Whereas, in my previous posts in this series, most of the lining details were hand-drawn, when it comes to coats of arms, crests, and lettering, I think it is better to find some printed artwork to work from .... unless you are a real artist! One useful source of illustrations is O.S.Nock's 'Pocket Encyclopaedia of British Steam Railways' although, since these are all paintings, the accuracy of some of the pictures has been disputed. There are many specialised books covering the liveries of individual companies and, for the GWR, I find J.N.Slinn's 'Great Western Way' invaluable. Other good sources of photographic material are preserved railways and museums. One problem, however, is that most historical photographs are only in monochrome. Providing you have a description of the original colours, it is not too difficult to 'colourise' old photos that you have scanned into the computer, by using the 'Colour' option on the various painting tools in Photoshop (or PSE), For my 'worked example', I start with a monochrome image of an early version of the GWR 'Garter crest', and describe my way of adding colour in PSE. I shall assume that you are familiar with my earlier posts in this series, where I described using various tools in PSE and setting up an ink-jet printer for scale printing. After loading the original image into PSE, make a duplicate layer, straight away. By doing all your work on this layer then, if/when you make a mistake, you can use the 'Eraser' tool to let the original show through again. My first step in colouring the garter was to select a suitable 'gold' colour and then use the 'Paint Bucket' tool to colourise all the light areas. In the tool 'options' (along the top of the image area) I chose Mode: Colour, Opacity:80%, Tolerance:25 and ensured that the 'Contiguous' and 'All Layers' boxes were NOT checked. The use of the 'Colour' mode ensures that the light and shade of the original image are preserved. The 'Tolerance' setting may need to be adjusted, to optimise which areas are filled with colour. Inevitably, some areas will be coloured, when they should not be, so use the 'Eraser' tool on these areas, to restore the original ..... you did remember to work on a duplicate layer? Colouring a Monochrome Image in PSE Continue colouring the rest of the image in a similar way, using the 'Bucket' tool, when possible, and the 'Paintbrush' tool (set in 'Colour' mode). I also use the 'Dodge' and 'Burn' tools (with 'Exposure' set to about 8%) to lighten highlights or darken shadow areas of the image, to taste. This step can be very effective in bringing out a 'glitter' in the gold areas. I also use the 'Hue' and 'Saturation' controls to enhance specific colours. A useful tip is that, if you select to Edit a specific colour range, in the Hue/Saturation menu, and then click on the relevant colour in the image, using the 'Dropper' tool, the colour range adjusts itself for an exact match. Adjusting individual colours in PSE After about half an hour's work, I reached the following image, from the monochrome original. You can do all the colouring with a mouse, but a better tool is a Pen Tablet. The pen is much easier to control precisely than a mouse. Also, the tip of the pen is pressure-sensitive, so you can find the exact spot and then press down to apply colour as needed. Unlike a mouse, the position of the pen on the tablet is directly related to the cursor position on the screen, so you can easily find the next position for colouring. 'Wacom' do a good range of pen tablets, starting from around £50 (Xmas prezzie?) Colourised GWR Garter (pre-1903) It is important to note that the GWR and, presumably, many other companies, used different styles over different periods of time. In the smaller scales, some of these variations may be considered insignificant. For example, details, such as the ship's rigging in the Bristol coat of arms, changed from time to time! However, the overall shape of the GWR garter changed significantly after 1903, from the elliptical design I have shown to a much rounder shape - the difference is obvious, even at a small scale! For number and name plates, I either use the outline and characters shown in 'Great Western Way', scanning and colouring them as required, or find a good photo to copy. I have not managed to find a suitable typeface online - the flat topped '3' is a sticking point - but perhaps a reader can suggest one that is suitable.- so scanning is my only option. 'Great Western Way' also provides drawings of a works plate and various types of combined name and number plates, used on specific engine classes. 'City of Truro' Number Plate When applying these details, I prefer not to use decal film but print onto good-quality photo paper. This gives the plates some depth, although it is necessary to re-touch the edges, to prevent the white paper from showing. Alternatively, apply decals to raised plates. One of my 'cheats' is to print a whole flat panel, such as a splasher front, as a single transfer. I fill the image with the background colour and then add all the lining and crests, to make a single image, which I cut out and apply to the locomotive. Once varnished over, this panel is indistinguishable, at a normal viewing distance, from a painted panel. I have even made complete tender sides in this way, complete with three-panel lining and the elaborate entwined GWR monogram! Although I have shown these images in previous posts, I have repeated them here, for convenience. Splasher and Tender-side decals The detail provided by a modern ink-jet printer is, to my eyes, remarkable. I have taken microscope images of lining and a works plate, printed at 4mm scale, which show considerable detail. Note, however, that the coloured dots provided by the printer are much smaller than the pixel resolution, which is essential, since the printer only has a small selection of inks to choose from. It produces a visual impression of the required colour by printing patterns of these 'dots'. My HP Deskjet 6980 is not a dedicated photo-printer and only uses three ink colours. Other printers, with more ink cartridges, may produce better results. Printed Lining & Lettering under the Microscope That's the end of this series on Lining & Lettering. I shall now take a break and wish all members of RMWeb a Happy Christmas, with the hope that Santa proves to be a railway fan Mike

Looks good - I like the way you did the 'distressed plaster' layer! Mike

Having seen your crop, Martin, I have to agree! It is certainly a very nice pic Mike

Thanks for the comment, PaulR. I have thought that there must be some good mechanisms out there, so will explore further! Mike

I agree but I'd already tried that and the combination of long wheelbase and my tight curves still left it unreliable, as reported in my earlier post at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12531-milk-churns-and-siphons/ and, anyway, I like a challenge Mike

I agree with 'Western Sunset' re. the first image. Personally, I would crop the picture symmetrically about the centre of the stairs but such things are matters of taste. It's a nice photo - I haven't visited Reading since the re-furb. Mike

As a result of comments on earlier posts, I have added this supplement, to describe some variations in lining styles. The GWR used many different styles of lining at different periods, as I was reminded by 'N15class'. Many of these can be reproduced by slight variations of the methods I described in earlier posts. Before 1881, however, the GWR sometimes used a technique called 'scarfed' lining, which is a variation on 'dropped shadows'. In the period 1864 - 1881, the lining comprised a 1” wide 'pea green' line, bordered on one side by a 1/2” black line and, on the other, by a 1/8” white line - with the added twist that these edges were offset, so that white always appeared to the left and above, whereas black appeared to the right and below. This more complex scheme, also used by other companies than the GWR, can be reproduced by making use of 'layers' in Photoshop (or PSE), to represent the different colours. I start by constructing a rectangular panel frame in black - 24 pixels wide. KH1 suggested a method for creating the curved corners and I have adapted this by using the Elliptical Marquee Tool', rather than Paintbrush (hold down the 'Shift' key to constrain the tool to a circle). I use this Marquee tool to mark off circular selection areas, inside each corner, as shown below, and then 'Invert' the selection [menu: Select | Inverse] and use the Paintbrush to fill in the rounded corner, against the selection boundary. Making Rounded Corners against a selection Boundary The outside corners can be made in exactly the same way, with selection boundaries set against the outer edge of the corner, and painting in the background colour. The next step is to create a duplicate layer [menu: 'Layer | Duplicate Layer...' - select 'Background copy' in the box that opens]. Then select the lining shape, on this new layer, with the 'MagicWand' tool and fill the shape with a Pea Green colour (R,G,B = 128,128,0), Creating a Background Copy Next, invert the selection, so that the whole of the background on the new layer becomes the selection, and select 'Image | Clear'. This will remove the background from the new layer but there will be no visible change, because the original layer will show through from 'below' (Think of 'layers' as a stack of images behind one another.) Now remove the selection [select | Deselect] and use the 'Move' tool to move the new layer upwards and to the left. The 'Pea Green' lining will move relative to the black and the background, which are on the original layer. Position it (by eye), so that half the thickness of the pea green band appear as a black 'drop shadow'. Positioning the top layer relative to the Background Now we do the same again for the white 'shadow'. Make sure the original Background layer is selected (This should happen automatically if you click on the background) and then make another duplicate layer. select the loop of lining again and, this time, fill with White. (The new layer should have slipped in underneath the top 'Pea Green' layer.) As before, select everything except the lining loop on this new layer and 'Clear' the background. Now 'Move' the White layer into its position above and to the left of the Pea Green loop. Now you have some 'Scarfed' lining! 'Flatten' the image [Layers | Flatten Image] and it is ready for printing. 'Scarfed' Lining Panel There are lots of other complications beloved of 19th century designers, such as inverted corners. I've not yet tackled these but would approach them by using the same techniques that I have already described. Always remember that, once you have drawn a complex ornamental flourish, you can use 'Copy' and 'Paste', together with 'Rotate' and 'Flip', to repeat the design in different ways. At this stage, I'll just wish you good luck Mike

My lining is correct for the 1881 - 1906 period (according to 'Great Western Way') The intervening green line came after 1906, when a 1" black line was flanked by

Alas, not nearly so cosy and inviting as the glimpse of Ardley waiting room in post #1245 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/196-creative-photography-railway-related/page-50 Nice photo, though Mike

Thank you,Michael. I'm actually doing this writing while I have an enforced break from modelling - I have dermatitis on my hands, probably from some of the materials I have been using - flux, adhesives, brass...??? A nuisance, but it's clearing up ok. This writing keeps me in the swing of things and has also brought some useful feedback, with additional ideas Mike

Thanks again, KH1, for additional tips - I wasn't too concerned about scan quality, since I only wanted a background template, but I take your point - I hadn't though of a box! I intend to say a little about using a pen tablet in a future post. Mike