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When I started this little project I figured I would just fall back on those old stand by railroad paints from Floquil. Well I haven't been paying attention and Testors, who bought Floquil, has discontinued them, in fact discontinued them some time ago. Not knowing much about the railroad paints available now I leaned on somebody that has been more involved than me, Darel from C&Sn3. He recommended Tru-Scale as the best replacement at this point. I went to Caboose Hobbies, who didn't have the color that Darel recommended, and I stood in front of the paint rack for 15 minutes and decided on TCP-139 MOPAC Boxcar Red. I then went looking around for information on how to shoot this paint through an airbrush. This is definitely airbrush paint and a bit on the expensive side at $4.99 for a one ounce bottle. I grabbed all three bottles Caboose had to make sure I had enough and for future additions to the C&N rolling stock roster. After reading up on it that may have been a mistake. Apparently Tru-Scale has a tendency to evaporate out of the bottle, probably because it has an acetone base. Which brings up the fact that this is a solvent based paint and when you shoot it through your airbrush be in a well ventilated area, or a use an airbrush booth and either way wear a mask, and not one of those little sanding masks.

So there is a lot of different information out there and a lot of it is not very informative. In fact I even saw one post that said that Tru-Scale didn't use pigment and that's why it didn't separate. Now that is possible as colors are either built from pigment or dyes, but generally anything called paint uses pigment (inks are dyes). Tru-Scale talks about pigment right on their website. So I combined the information I could find into something that, I hoped, would work for me. This paint is pretty thin already but it wouldn't go through my Infinity airbrush straight from the bottle. I pulled out some little graduated cups that I keep around and measured out three parts paint to one part acetone, that's right acetone as a paint thinner. I got lucky and hit the right combo off the bat and this 3:1 ratio worked like a charm.

Going into the booth were four boxcars, one stockcar, two flatcars, two short cabooses and one combine caboose. The C&N kept all its freight cars and cabooses the same color which means I don't have to switch out colors. Most of the prep consisted of removing trucks and in the case of the cabooses applying a liquid mask to all the windows. The cabooses I completely dissembled and removed the interior lighting components. They are actually quite nicely detailed on the inside, to bad you can't really see it through those small windows.

So two bottles of paint and 10 cars later I was finished, a pretty good days work. The cabooses will probably need some touch up. Its hard getting up underneath some of the overhangs and I found a thumbprint on the side of one so back to the booth for those, probably later this week. With the painting done this bunch is ready to see if these brand new decals I made are going to work. Pretty exciting stuff!

On to the pictures!

Three boxcars like this.

Fortunately only one in this ugly color

One stockcar

two flatcars

The reefer, although I reconsidered and left this one in yellow. I'll go back and do some decals in black for this one.

Disassembling a caboose. Removed the lighting and was surprised by the nice detail on the inside.

Easier to see the detail on the red interior as opposed to the black interior in the first caboose

Dissembling the second one, went much quicker this time.

The combine caboose, of course this one didn't come apart in quite the same way.

The interior, again some nice detail that you just can't see

Airbrushing complete! I left the stockcar with a black roof.

The cabooses and the flatcars.

I'm part of a wargame group known as LEG (League of Extraordinary Gamers). In a bout of insanity several years ago we decided to run a LaSalle tournament at Genghis Con and some how figured that we would have upwards of 32 players sign up. It was based on a somewhat reasonable assumption at that time. The FLGS couldn't keep the rulebook in stock and had sold over 60 copies, 15mm Napoleonics were flying out the door and there was a lot of buzz on the net. To accommodate 32 players we needed 16 6x4 game boards. We had been playing for a years on a couple of felt boards that the owner of the FLGS had made. He had painted them up and flocked them and we forced him to reveal his secrets. There are two key items to making this work; high quality felt and matt medium. Somehow I managed to volunteer to get the boards ready while the rest of the club worked on the scenery.

A couple of decisions were made before we got completely stuck in.
1) Semi-Geomorphic. The club occasionally puts on big games, the FLGS had 6 6x4 tables and it was just possible to arrange them end to end in the room. They were also on wheels, that could be locked down, to make them pretty easy to move around. Semi-Geomorphic boards let us create an gaming area where the roads and streams at least looked like they went together. To that end I created a 4x4 grid map and layed out the road net and river courses.
2) Easy to Store. This was big we didn't have space to actually store 16 boards so we turnedto the felt board as something that could be rolled up and stored easily. This would make them much easier to transport as well.
3) Good Looking. Since this was to be our signature event we wanted something that was definitely a step above a piece of felt layed out on the table. We matched the colors of the hills as closely to the board colors so that they looked like that went together.

We  were able to purchase the felt in bulk, we were fortunate in having a fabric expert in the club and she was able to handle this purchase for us. I went off to Walmart to purchase acrylic craft paints. Regular model acrylics were going to be way to expensive for this project. There were two goals as far as paint went. We wanted to break up large expanses of green and I wanted to be able to try and give some visible depth to the rivers when there really wasn't one. I purchased a couple of different greens, browns and blues to get started. This project would certainly prove that you can push darn near anything through an airbrush.

Rather than cut them up into the individual boards right off the bat, we basically cut them into four sections essentially representing one row of the 4x4 grid. I marked out the spots where the roads and rivers would enter and exit each board. Since I would be going through a lot of paint I bought some big cups to mix paint in. I thinned the paint with Windex starting at 50:50 paint to Windex and then thinning more from there if necessary. In the end most of it was probably thinned down closer to 40:60. I started off by creating blotches of green and brown across the entire section. I then moved on to the streams. I reversed the way you would usually try and show deep water and went for something that would show up better. I layed down a wide swath of dark blue and then came back down the center with the teal. This made it look like there were wet banks and "framed" the lighter blue. Not quite the effect I originally wanted but it looks good on the boards and helps the rivers stand out a bit more. The base for the roads was laid out in a single color of brown, a bit lighter than the brown I used to splotch the board with. I did this painting over the course of a couple weekends at the FLGS as it was the only space big enough to lay out the felt. I struggled through a lot of airbrush clogs trying to get the mix right. I certainly learned how to tear down and clean my airbrush pretty quick though. It was a good experience from that standpoint, it was still quite frustrating on more than one occasion though.

With the painting completed over the 4 "strips" I was ready to start flocking. I used the finest grain Woodland Scenics flock I could get my hands on. Fortunately the largest model railroad store (Caboose Hobbies) in the US is right here in Denver so I didn't have any problems getting what I needed. Again I wanted a number of different colors to help break things up. I purchased a couple of different medium to light greens and a couple of brown/sand colors for the roads. Step 1 was to sprinkle the flock on to the boards using a strainer. You must keep the layers of flock as then as possible, this is critical! Once you have finished flocking the board its time to apply the matte medium. Matte medium is a foggy white fluid available at your local art or craft stores. The brand we used for this was Liquitex. I'm not sure what artists use it for but its about the best glue in the world for scenery! Again I cut this down 50:50 with water. I then sprayed this over the entire board and I laid it on thick, you should just be able to see it almost puddle on the surface. You need it this thick to make sure it penetrates the flock all the way through to the felt and then into the felt itself. If it doesn't get all the way through the flock it will just form a crust that will peel off later. I let this layer dry completely. Fortunately I live in a high, dry climate and the drying time was somewhat reduced. This first layer of matte medium will slightly adhere to the surface underneath. I was able to peel it right up without a problem and we haven't had any residual stickiness problems. After the first layer had dried I applied a second coat of matte medium just to be sure everything was going to stay in place. Of that didn't help those areas that had formed a crust so it may not have been necessary.

Once that had dried, we cut the boards up into their final pieces. I used some stencils and airbrushed a number on to the back of each board in each corner. The numbered represented its place on the original 4x4 map. Then a copy of the map with the section of board inside outlined in red was taped to the outside of the tube. This makes it easy to look at the original map and figure out which board you want to use and which boards will easily connect up with it. Since we kept the road entry and exit points consistent there are a lot of possible combinations other than the combinations shown on the map.

Overall we have been pretty happy with this little project. The boards get a lot of use and have held up really well over the last couple of years. The only problems we have encountered are with those areas where a crust of flock formed rather than getting glued all the way down. I have some recent shots taken by Ian Darley showing some of the boards in use for the FOW tournament at the Feast of Blades convention here in Denver.

I have been quite on the posting front because another project was occupying my attention. I have spent time over the last few months and a lot this last week taking down my old darkroom and converting it into a proper painting space. There is still some stuff to do and clean up but it is to the point were I can start painting in it. The under shelf lights are some wicked expensive LED lights, but they are very bright and run very cool and will last a long time.. Overhead are two sets of 4' fluorescent lights and of course I can pull out all kinds of extra light if I want. The workbench top is a hollow core door so there is plenty of space to work on. The airbrush station is sitting on its own table. the compressor sits underneath and I can add a lot more light if I need to. Its vented out the back and up into the crawl space.

I have managed to fill all this space up and I still haven't managed to get everything into it. I'll have to really work at getting the stuff underneath cleaned up for more miniature and game storage space.

So really pictures say it all.



 The Traveller Section. This may have to get moved else where so free up mini storage space

Well, after spending a whole weekend learning to use the airbrush, I figured I better put it to good use. So out came the horses for the three points of SAGA Hearthguard and the warlord, 13 horses. They were mounted up and primed white (and quite frankly, despite my grey primer leanings, black is a better primer for the airbrush sometimes with a shot or two of white primer over the top to really make things pop). I messed up the midtone initially (bad color choice) but easily overcame that since the airbrush paint goes on so thin. Overall I'm pleased with them at this point. They are down to brush work right now. I did airbrush the socks just to see if I could do that and really didn't have much problem with that. The black manes were tougher and that really will need the paint brush to finish up. I did one blaze but I think it will be better to do the blazes with the brush. Some are better than others but I'm still learning what I can and cannot do and what will work best with different things. I worked with Vallejo Model Air, Vallejo Panzer Aces, Flames of War (which I believe is just Vallejo Game Color re-packaged) and Reaper HD paints.
Here are tonights results:

Two days of airbrushing class time is certainly going to influence how I approach painting from now on.

1) Once you are familiar with the equipment it doesn't take much longer to setup for airbrushing than it does for painting. That's just not even a valid argument against not pulling out the airbrush for me anymore. It does require some specialized tools and material but once you have them why shouldn't you use them?

2) Airbrushing saves time, a lot of time in most situations. Had I known completely what I was doing and not been experimenting as much the initial base coat, shading and highlighting that I did on the Nurgle Demon Prince could have been done in 30 - 45 minutes. That would have been an easy 2 hours with a brush. I'm not sure I could have matched the smoothness of that base coat with a brush either.

3) The first question to ask for any given project now is; how much of this can I airbrush?

4) An airbrush doesn't need a complete cleaning to change colors. Add clean water/alcohol in the cup, squirt through a few times, dumping the rest out of the cup and wiping the cup clean is just about all you need (white being somewhat of an exception). Add new paint, spray off the model till the color comes through and you are good to go. It does need to be stripped down and cleaned at the end of a session just like you would take care of any tool (you clean your paint brushes when you're done with them, right?). When coming back to start another paint session I found that it helps just to run a little bit of the water/alcohol mix through it just to prime the pump so to speak.

5) I can strip an airbrush blind folded now, well not really. I actually only had a couple of minor clogs over the weekend none of which actually required me to take the thing apart. Rocking the trigger back hard three or four times cleared most of the issues, if that didn't do it then I would actually pull the needle out of the way and do it again. Those two actions cleared it every time. However, the guy to my left (Derek) had a Paasche that he seemed to require a lot of attention and the guy to my right (Scott) had issues with his Harder & Steenbeck, until he changed his needle out from the .15 to the .4mm, after that he didn't have a problem.

6) I love my Iwata Eclipse (HP-CS), although I will definitely use the Harder & Steenbeck Infinity as well. This past weekend I wanted to concentrate using an airbrush I was familiar with.

7) The solution to use for both mixing up paints and cleaning the airbrush is about 10% Isopropyl Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, available at just about any major grocery store, department store or Walgreens equivalent) and 90% Distilled Water. Distilled Water is important to prevent non-paint build up inside your airbrush. Especially in areas with a high mineral content in the water, like Colorado.

8) Huge key, knowing when to stop using the airbrush and go in with the paint brush.

9) I haven't yet run across an acrylic paint that I can't send through the airbrush but some of them are a lot easier than others. This weekend I used; Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Model Air, Reaper Master Series and Reaper HDs. Other people around me were using regular Citadel and Citadel Foundation paints (none of the brand new stuff though). I have also managed to get craft paints through my airbrush (not a lot of fun though). My favorite of the bunch was definitely the Vallejo Model Air, it was just easier to work with and required very little thinning to get it working, makes sense, its designed for airbrushes. Both the Reaper lines were easy to work with too. Oh, and sadly Vallejo Model Color Smoke, does not like airbrushes, that gave more problems to Derek (on my left) than any other single color. It seems to just be a gritty paint.

10) All pigments are not the same. This is not in reference to any specific brands, just some colors are thicker and require more thinning than others. Other paints required (especially airbrush specific) required very little to almost no thinning.

11) Messing around with the PSI is over-rated. I left mine on 20psi the entire weekend, regardless of the paint I was using and they all behaved the same. I won't rule out that there will be times when I will need more or less pressure, but you certainly don't need to be adjusting it all the time.

12) You can thin your paint to much! If it is taking more than a couple of passes with the airbrush to build up the paint coverage then you need to add more paint to the mix.

13) Little bottles with good lids are your friends. Its much easier to mix up the paint you want in a small bottle/jar and then dump it into the airbrush cup than trying to mix it right in the cup. I bought two packs that each contained a dozen little plastic jars with lids for the second day and things went much smoother and quicker. If I was working my way through a bunch of figures (say my WWI US Marines) or vehicles I would go ahead and pre-mix the colors I needed in larger more sealable jars. The important thing to remember here is that everything still separates and you need to make sure the color you have pre-mixed is thoroughly mixed again before you pour it into the airbrush cup.

 That's the stuff I learned this weekend. I'll be firing up the airbrush again tonight and looking forward to doing it rather than thinking of it as a chore.

I didn't work on the Nurgle Demon Prince at all today. The airbrushing work is done on that one and I need to go in with the brush and finish the detailing. Today I concentrated on the vehicles I brought. Over all I'm fairly pleased with the results. Then I took pictures, there is nothing as unforgiving as looking at a picture blown up to 5x actual size. They are now at the point of needing brushwork to finish them off. Windows, headlights, tail lights, license plates and weathering, that sort of thing. I'm going to rust out the Soviet Lada Rivas pretty good. I'm undecided on how to finish off the rest. The Cougar MRAPs will get weathered and dusted up. For the most part it looks like Marine units keep their vehicles pretty clean. So here are the results from today: