After badmouthing the garish red paint* on the combine in my previous post, I figured I'd better present my preferences, or at least the process for determining my choice. I'm following a suggested scheme by Selley for their passenger cars. I'll admit that when I first read it I dismissed it, but after searching and seeing what others had done I came back to it and embraced it. It's basically this: roof - black or brown, sides and ends - Tuscan red, trucks and platform details - olive green, underbody and select details - black. So, I pulled my colors I thought might work and began making color swatches on a sheet painted with the same primer I'm using on the cars.
Below, the choices I'm leaning towards. Or, mellow traffic signals. You decide.
*I should admit that many great passenger trains have been a bright red or similarly bold rosy hue. John Allen's streamlined passenger train was painted Mandarin Red, as was his little combine that worked the branch line out of Gorre up to Daphetid. Perhaps that was the inspiration for the little combine I found.
Just watch. You'll see. No, really, watch this first. If you're in a hurry, skip to 8:30.
I'm not a military modeler. I messed around with airplane and sci-fi kits very briefly as a kid, but that's about as close as I came. Still, I appreciate good model making and finishing. I found this channel via suggestions to watch his diorama construction videos. Wow. "A tiny bit better" he says? No, the results are stunning.
But more than the results, it is the process I find most interesting. Many fantasy model makers, tabletop wargamers, and military modelers do one thing VERY differently than model railroaders when building a diorama. They may use the same scenic materials, adhesives and paints, but it is in how they apply them where the difference is most apparent, or rather, the sequence of application, with an extra step.
Model railroaders or folks who make model railroad dioramas will generally select materials based on color - a certain color dirt, another color palate of grasses, etc. We may tint with washes or powders, but essentially we're relying on the color of the material to be at least a base for the finished color. Texture is important as well, but we tend to look to the color of the material since we're spoiled for choice. There is such a variety of colorful scenic materials out there (but try to find gray grass...).
Other model makers, like Martin from Night Shift in the video above, focus more on the texture of the material first, and the color second. Get the texture right, and then you can paint it any color you like. In the video above, he applies ground cover from dirt to grass to special photo etched plants. Then he paints it. All of it. He paints it dark brown. All of it. Dirt, grass, plants, all of it. Brown.
I've never seen that. I've never seen anyone fully scenic a diorama base then paint the whole thing brown. I've never seen that.
As alluded to above, I have seen other diorama makers paint the whole thing black then work up the color with washes, drybrushing, etc. But that doesn't usually include the grasses or other elements added later. Buildings, sure, and of course rocks and even the dirt. But all of it? And then to bring back the color so precisely!
This does enable him to do some precision work, matching the color and texture of the mud in the ground to the color and texture of the mud on the tank treads. It unifies the scene naturally by utilizing the same color palate throughout. But is it really necessary? Is it worth the extra effort? And what would our miniature railroad worlds look like if we applied a similar process to them? Is that even possible?
I'm still processing this. Scope me, I'm outta here.
