Color Matching Advice

Mr. Trainiac May 18, 2020

  1. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    You guys are going to have to help me because I am about to lose it. I have been looking for a paint color for my Hogshead boxcar. Some of you may have seen it in the Workbench thread. Yeah, it still not done. Here is the car I am modeling:

    p797060012-3.jpg sou9755a.jpg
    And now my problem:
    The one with the 2003 watermark matches the color of the car next to it and the one on display in Bramwell, West Virginia. But the second darker photo is the exact same car just 4 years earlier. Is the difference due to camera/slide type or fading paint? The 1999 photo is obviously a slide, but the newer one looks digital. What do I trust and match to?

    Does anybody have a model paint they would use to represent either of these photos? I am leaning toward the accuracy of the digital photo, and the best colors I have found so far are Model Master Earth Red or Tamiya NATO brown.

    Earth Red:
    02.jpg

    Tamiya NATO brown: raikisan_180403_5ac3c35c04253-1600x1066.jpg
    A match to the older photo may be Tamiya red brown.
    tigerii008cw_5.jpg

    If anybody has any other ideas that they would like to share, that would be great. The boxcar color is weird- it's more orange than the regular 'boxcar red.' I can't find much on painting Southern Railway boxcars or what colors people use for their models. I haven't looked into Scalecoat and Tru-color yet, but I have never used enamel paint either. I know that Tru-color has a large range of 'boxcar red' but none are specifically this red (or at least none are named for the Southern Railway).

    I pulled the model photos off of various blogs and scale kit forums because they seem to be using Tamiya more than us railroaders (probably because they are branded for military models to begin with).
     
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  2. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    The second picture (possibly digital) is under exposed and probably taken with a polarizer filter (that sky is very deep blue). I wouldn't necessarily trust that second picture for color matching.
     
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  3. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    More "recent" photos on rrpicturearchives.net (2006)

    [​IMG]

    The colour balance here looks more natural. Also, from the website where you downloaded the first picture, you can see large colour shifts from one picture to the next, depending on whether the picture was taken in shade or full sunlight. However, the one tagged https://tonysissons.zenfolio.com/p450766669/h2F822BAC#h36e21a07 appears to be with the most natural shading. (at least the grasses look correct)

    My big question though, is whether you'll be modeling the interior wall grafitti?! :)
     
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  4. wpsnts

    wpsnts TrainBoard Supporter

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    Tru-Color TCP-224 Freight Car Red - Southern might be what you're looking for. Their web site color chart is not 100% accurate of course. I have been using their paints for awhile now and I'm happy so far.
    Good luck to ya and keep us posted.
     
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  5. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    The paint would have faded as these cars were in service, so a precise color match isn't necessary. You could also look at a broad array of common SOU boxcars, gons and hoppers; it appears to me that the same paint color was applied to your car and to these.

    You're working on a really neat prototype. (y)
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2020
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  6. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Mr. Trainiac, please don't lose it. In the end, try to do what looks best to you. The actual car has been outside in different places. The influence of environment may be varied almost to no end but very subtle. Good luck.
     
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  7. fordy744

    fordy744 TrainBoard Member

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  8. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    It also seems to have a color filter applied (probably yellow, judging by the sky and plants). I'm thinking the lens was not standard either, given that the box looks like an eighty footer, and the ties look a yard apart. Even the wheels look slightly oval.

    Charles Welch seems to have had other priorities besides helping modelers accurately reproduce those cars.
     
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  9. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    I ended up using the Tamiya NATO Brown paint on the Hogshead. It is a little darker than I expected. I think it reflects the car in its as-painted condition well, but needs to be lighter and more orange to represent the weathered and faded photos we were looking at earlier. None of my other models are weathered, so I guess this will fit with my collection anyways. I am putting decals on it now, which is a tedious process.

    Since the model has all those ribs, I have to cut out and decal each letter individually. I have some extra “Super Cushion Service” decals to show how much closer together they are on the decal sheet, as well as what they look like separated between the ribs. The “Green Light” slogan is blocked into groups between the ribs, obviously I didn’t do all of those letters separately. There is some glare on the decal film that is coming from my bench lighting: I am still working on it and it hasn’t been dullcoated yet.
    [​IMG]

    I still need to get a sheet of freight car data because the Southern Decal sheet just has the logos and slogans. The car will need a Consolodated plate, the weight stencils, as well as some other smaller decals, which I hope Microscale included on their data sets.
     
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  10. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    Just noticed that I spelled Consolidated incorrectly. I think the car, while under direct lighting, looks good, but it looks a bit darker in real life, especially in less intense lighting. I used the same color to paint a Westerfield resin kit too. I might put it in the Workbench thread once it gets clear coated.
     
  11. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Looks good!
     

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