Help with choosing a blue paint.

[craigolio1]

Hello everyone. This locomotive will soon be on the killing floor and I’m having a hard time coming up with a good blue to use for it. I have several different bottles of blue but none of them are close. I wonder if anybody can suggest a good place to start?



Thanks.

Craig.

[mu26aeh]

Well, lets start with what you already know.  What paints do you already have that don't match, then we won't repeat

[craigolio1]

Well, lets start with what you already know.  What paints do you already have that don't match, then we won't repeat

Good call. Ugh. I’ll have to do an inventory. Haha.

Craig

[thomasjmdavis]

Do you know the color temperature of your layout room lighting?  For blues, color temp of the light makes a lot of difference.  The photo is taken on a bright sunny day, so likely that's about as "blue" as it ever looked.

[mu26aeh]

I'm going to be in a similar boat soon with the new Gettysburg and Northern unit.  Which blue to use

[craigolio1]

Do you know the color temperature of your layout room lighting?  For blues, color temp of the light makes a lot of difference.  The photo is taken on a bright sunny day, so likely that's about as "blue" as it ever looked.

I used daylight fluorescents

[craigolio1]

Well, lets start with what you already know.  What paints do you already have that don't match, then we won't repeat

Ok. So Thanks to you asking what paints don’t work i may have found a good match that I didn’t realize I had.

I went through my blues to see what didn’t match. So to answer your question: Testors MM Blue Angel Blue, Poly Scale CSX Enchantment Blue, BAR blue, D&H Avon Blue, Conrail Blue, and TLT VIA Rail Blue, Rapido ONR dark blue.

Then I found a bottle of Tamiya Blue and I think it’s really close.



Craig

[thomasjmdavis]

One other possibility I have for you is MM Dark Blue.  That is based on holding a swatch painted on styrene up your photo up on my screen.  But given that your Tamiya blue is still available, I would probably go with that if I were you, if only because you will be able to find more if you decide to do another loco in the same color 5 years from now.
(Sorry it took so long to get back on this- I did swatches on styrene 5 or 6 years ago trying to match L&N dark blue used on their passenger cars. For reasons I can't explain, that swatch card ended up in a parts box instead of the paint box. Found it yesterday.)

[craigolio1]

One other possibility I have for you is MM Dark Blue.  That is based on holding a swatch painted on styrene up your photo up on my screen.  But given that your Tamiya blue is still available, I would probably go with that if I were you, if only because you will be able to find more if you decide to do another loco in the same color 5 years from now.
(Sorry it took so long to get back on this- I did swatches on styrene 5 or 6 years ago trying to match L&N dark blue used on their passenger cars. For reasons I can't explain, that swatch card ended up in a parts box instead of the paint box. Found it yesterday.)

Thanks for taking the time to find that Tom. Man I miss Model Master. I still have a stock of a few colours I need for another passenger train, but there’s a couple I’m missing that I should have found when available. Oh well.

On another note. Someone mentioned that my photo is on a bright sunny day and is likely as blue as the loco ever looked. I’m planning to model it as it was when it was fresh and new so I like the bright look in this case, but if I wanted to just tone it down a touch after painting would i do a white or possibly a grey wash?

Craig

[svedblen]

White, I would say, but why not try your hands on fading using Zinc White oil paint? Like the gentleman in the video below is doing. I have done once myself. It was a bit scary at first but as he explains the method is quite forgiving and gives you a lot of control.

Great bridge build by the way! 

[Sokramiketes]

I've only recently discovered how easy the Tamiya colors convert to useful railroad colors.  For example, that Tamiya Blue works really well as a brighter color or a darker color, just based on a white, gray, or black undercoat.  And the level of top coat thickness. 

And the rattle cans go on soooo smoooth. 

[craigolio1]

I've only recently discovered how easy the Tamiya colors convert to useful railroad colors.  For example, that Tamiya Blue works really well as a brighter color or a darker color, just based on a white, gray, or black undercoat.  And the level of top coat thickness. 

And the rattle cans go on soooo smoooth.

Wow I’m glad you mentioned the undercoat. This model is a red plastic. It’s lightly primed with white and then the ends are painted with six very light coats of Vallejo white…. But the rest of the model looks pink. I had planned to mask it and shoot white to seal the tape, then grey primer, but I’ll test the blue on some grey primer first so I can see what the final colour looks like. 

[craigolio1]

White, I would say, but why not try your hands on fading using Zinc White oil paint? Like the gentleman in the video below is doing. I have done once myself. It was a bit scary at first but as he explains the method is quite forgiving and gives you a lot of control.

Great bridge build by the way! 

Thank you! I’ll check this out.