January Weathering Challenge Voting

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ok, I'm going to try something new here too. Nobody can see the results until the end of voting.

I'm also going to include the proto photo with each entry so you can easily compare them. Don't worry, you only download the file once, so it shouldn't kill you dialup guys too badly.

So the best of luck to all of the competitors this month. Thank you guys for participating and making this a success.

GonzoCRFan  (N-Scale)




MrKLUKE (HO-Scale)



NScaleSteve (N-Scale)



Feel free to post any comments you'd like, just don't be a jerk.

[Iain]

I think MRKluke has it this month.  Gonzo's is second place, but the weathering is not dark enough in my opinion.  Perfect pattern-wise, just too light.

[wm3798]

Mr. Kluke has the advantage of a brightly sunlit photo.  I think Gonzo's results would be better if the lighting of the photo was better.

Lee

[Sokramiketes]

I gave it to Steve.  His rust needs more sharp, contrasting edges with the yellow paint... but he's the only one that addressed the stir-up steps.

[SirTainly]

Damn..all three are so good! :-\

[mellow-mike]

Well... here goes...

A round of applause for those who actually entered. I'm thinking I won't be writing long overly detailed critiquess anymore, for three-entry challenges, that only attract 35 or so votes total. But I will say this:

Sean's car. Decent enough. The yellow lighting may be a small factor - but I have a thing about orange rust. I don't see orange trucks on the real car. Your couplers are not only orange - but gooey. At some point, you need to try something besides a bottle of Testors Model Master rust - or whatever that rust-colored paint was.

Jeff's car. At first glance, it's probably the winner. The hood rust is certainly the best of the three, scale notwithstanding. What keeps it from being a perfect car in my opinion? The tone of the car is way too green for me. The proto is more of a dirty bluish-gray. I would've replaced the toy-like huge stirrups on this model. Just because when you look at it - they jump out at you - and ruin the "real car reduced in a shrinking ray" goal.

Steve's car. Hmmmmm. He missed the boat on the rust replication. That's mostly what the challenge was about this time. I do like how he admitted it, though. What makes me look longer at his model, is that (say it with me people) he matched the proto road number!  Plus, he not only changed out the stirrups and grabs in N Scale - but look at the top of the yellow hood's lift handle!  It's a shame Steve's paintbrush skills do not equal his tweezer skills!  There is one thing that bugs me, and maybe it wasn't his doing, but where the heck is the horizontal walkway along the side? 

[3rdrail]

I'm gonna have to think on this one a couple of days. They're all exceptionally good, but each has a different tiny flaw.

The lack of entries is getting disconcerting, though. Every month far more declare they're "in" than submit a model.

Perhaps we should start a "I missed the deadline, but here is my model" topic!!

[Red Rock]

Great looking cars guys. Mike did a good job of covering the details, so I don't have a lot to add. Great to see you in the challenge Gonzo! Jeff nice base color on the yellow hood. Steve did a really good job of "seeing" the proto car. He not only added the little hook on the handle, it looks like he reduced the mass of both of them. The missing walkway may be a result of the frame modification to the lower edges above the wheel wells. Great job by all, now I have to decide which way to vote. :-\

[quadk]

I think all three cars are great and they all have alot of hard work into them. I had to vote for MrKluke though as the only thing that I see wrong with the car is the stirrups and the last three numbers on the car number. Going from the proto photo he is the only one that did the graffiti on the side of the car and the bent handrails along with matching the rust, pitting spots up about as perfect as you can get.

[CNWlivesinme]

Me not being a jerk, that is easy. A smart-a$$ on the otherhand.... : 

Am going with Mr. Kluke on this one*. The rust on the yellow is what I personally found central to recreating the car, and he did it the best.

That being said, I could not have come even close to what all three did with their cars. You guys should be proud of your work!



*The car should make somebody on eBay very happy 

[GonzoCRFan]

I replaced the photo of my car with something more competent. That's what I get for trusting my judgement at 3 AM.

The lack of entries is getting disconcerting, though. Every month far more declare they're "in" than submit a model.

Ed and I were talking about the participation level in this challenge when discussing what to do with February. I think what turned people off from this challenge was that it required custom painting a pair of coil goods. While they're not big projects, it can still be intimidating to people who don't think they have the tools and skills to create the base model before they can even weather it. And I think people saying they voted for a car because it had the stirrups replaced may also turn some people away. I can imagine some modelers sitting on the sidelines, thinking "I'd LIKE to enter, but now I'm expected to custom paint and detail cars too?" This was originally a weathering challenge, not a painting/detailing challenge. And I think when factors like that become the basis for deciding a vote, you're getting away from the original goal of this thing we do every month. Due to the nature of coil cars, the custom painting may have been a necessary evil this month, but it's not something we should do regularly.

Now, before you people jump on me, I am NOT knocking Steve's model. I consider him a friend, and he added the necessary details to make it look like it's not an N scale car, and also went the extra mile to renumber the car. All I'm trying to say is that in a weathering challenge, the weathering should decide who wins.

[nscalesteve]

ok, ok, I guess I have to say something too...

first, Mike, the walkways are on, see...   
(actually I f**ked them totally up on the challenge car (even worse than I f**ked up the rust on the yellow hood - rust ? - what rust ? ) and so I decided to let them off, the original ones are too thick and so I was trying to make new ones...)



back to weathering, I do agree with Sean, it's the weathering that counts in this challenge and NOT the details. but if I put a lot of time into one of this projects I have to replace such things like this overdimensional stirups and other details, I have to do it FOR ME. you can say now "he would better invest the time in a proper weathering job to get closer to the real thing than to detail the car with grab irons, stirups and other stuff like that" and you may be right, actually you are right. but I'm still haven't found what I'm looking for, I still don't know how people do "rust" which looks like real rust. in my opinion, Sean is with his first attempt very close to what looks like rust, I still haven't found the secret of doing rust. but I'm still trying and one day, I can tell you, one day I will blow you MrKLUKEs, mellow-mikes, RedRocks you name it, out there, all away with my rust... (this is not a threat) 

...and now a message to all those people who announced that they will participate in the January challenge, I know three other people, where are your cars ? are you afraid Mikes comments ? (hey, I'll tell you a secret, he is also only cooking with water...  ) or were you running out of time and not finished ? any other reasons ? c'mon, show us your cars, I'm interested to see them as well...  (and now back to the hunt for a 2 bay hopper with PRR letters on it...)  ;D ;D

[mellow-mike]

I like the idea of not being able to see the current tally of votes. That eliminates people doing tie-breaker or pity votes.

However - we should not divulge WHO we are voting for along with our critiques. Like how I did it, for example. Otherwise, readers can go through the posts and get a good guess who is ahead - or behind.

[Ian MacMillan]

Thanks for waiting Ed..... here are my lame attempts for this month. A car with no hangers for others because of a careless crew! No yellow as my Airbrush is out of service due to a gasket blow... :'(

[Bama Red]

Thanks to Ian's entry, I have found something I can model - a pink foam culvert! Thanks, Ian ;D.

Edit: BTW, really nice railside cabinet.