...as requested by Paul.... Start with any freight car of Choice, here I chose an HO Scale RailBox Boxcar by Athearn. Some surfaces are too slick to let the gel stick, so you may have to prime the car with dull-cote. For this project, you will need mainly gel pens. Experiemnt on a spare plastic part or shell to see what other pens work and what don't. Now you can start "tagging" your freight cars. A STEADY HAND, and PATIENCE will be required! Now it would be wise to seal your car with Dull-cote so the grafitti doesn't rub off. Ok, thats all! This works pretty well, but I can't stress enough the importance of patience and a steady hand.
Hey that's pretty good! Thanks A&A 6183, I tried to do some "Killroy was here" chalk graffiti for my transition era railroad with a fine paintbrush but it looked terrible. I'll bet the white gel pen will give the results I am looking for.
Looks like what we see on the rails here. Piece of advice, remember that the people who do it are only at most 6 to seven feet tall with their reach...unless they luck out and find a ramp next to that car...and so, most graffitti I see all in the levels of the bottom five to seven feet of the car...due to the two feet of the coupler. Some people add a few feet by jumping up oin the side rails, but still they don't really mess with anything higher then so high.
That looks great. Just like the grafitti on the trains. Thanks for the idea. U could probably wash it off to. U wouldn't believe what these people do to put up grafitti!! They use pickup trucks with extension ladders.
Thanks Pat, It looks quite simple and I'm sure a lot of taggers would probably like it as well. There is a bit of an argument on whether graffiti should be part of our modelling but it is up too personal choice. A lot of modellers would take the opinion that modelling is an escape from day to day life where graffiti and vandalism costs the community a lot of money wheras others believe it is prototypical. The way I see it is whatever makes you happy
I like realism, I don't neccesarily approve of it, but it's something that turns heads. I only do this to maybe 3 out of every 20 or 25 cars I have, so that makes about 5 cars have the grafitti. [ 28. November 2002, 23:06: Message edited by: A&A 6183 ]
Its a good way to show the realism tho! I must say, I model years in time that Grafitti wasn't even heard of.. in the 40's to 1960. BUT I do have some stuff in HO thats present time modeling that can use a good dose of Grafitti being in the new age where kids get away with almost anything! So.. one day I might get some gel pens and do a few box cars up for that added realism. But the older stuff won't have it. being it was hard to get spray cans in the 40's, and 50's....
I can also vouch that this method works, I used it on a mech reefer a little while ago, copying graffiti I photographed on a similar prototype car, a few other things I found: *If you're doing fancy multicolour graffiti, you can paint the base colour and shape on first, this gives a good base for the pens. Obviously you can't do that with a simple one colour "tag" *If you're somebody (like me) who doesn't totally get the culture and what these are all about, try finding some prototype pics and copying the graffiti from them, doesn't have to be an exact match...just enough to make it look credible. *I found that the pens would work on a glossy surface eventually, my graffiti was solid blocks of colours, and you sort of "colour in" the area once you have done your outlines. *If the car you are modelling is weathered, do pretty much all the weathering first (with the exception of maybe a little road dirt which has collected on top of the "art") - they do seem to go for cleaner cars (presumably they know that paint on dirt doesn't work so good!!!) *Dullcoating is pretty much essential, these pens take an age to dry, especially on a smooth surface. This can be an advantage, they will mostly wipe off if you make a mistake. I'll pop a couple of prototype pics up within the next couple of days which should give some idea's.
I think that i could use this method to write a special little note to someone, so that they see it when they next come over
Here's some pics as promised. This was the car I modelled, (unfortunately I can't get you a pic of the model as it's no longer in my possesion ) I hadn't weathered the car enough to start with, so couldn't do the rust effects on the real car after the graffiti. When I get chance to photograph the model I will and i'll post a pic for you all. I think this one's fascinating. The left two tags must date from the same time as they share the green base colour. The tagger has noticed that they have obliterated the car number and has gone up the ladder and painted on "Number# 523914" in white above the tag. Sometime after that (presumably) a railroad employee has added SOU523914 in black spray across the top of the tag! The tags on this stack car seem to be quite old and starting to fade, I like the half reapplied car number in a different font over the top, that would be a nice modelling detail! Hope those are useful to someone. [ 30. November 2002, 09:59: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
dig' em , i am going to practice on some of my old tyco,life like, and bachmann stuff. Hell i even buy up new bachmann now with the kadees, and tear them up. 1.99-2.99 not bad for the untrained hand!!!
