Tram Passengers

tramcar trev

tramcar trev

all manner of mechanical apparatus...
Today I held a woman by the feet and painted her boobs, well several women actually, I think they all enjoyed the sensation of the brush strokes.... Yes of course it was my plastic people I was painting. I learnt to do it at the Wargamers Shop, painting figures that is.... And for those of you who think Tramway Modellers are a tad strange then Wargamers are so far of to one side they are right off the scale. But its a simple process really, rather than use solid colour I use “artists acrylics” and a mixing pallet, put 2 or more drops of paint of different colours onto the palette and use the brush to blend them and apply so as not to have one solid colour but rather a “symphony” of colour with different tones and hues. I tried to use sombre colours redolent of the period. It tends to look natural especially hair which if I bend white and black I get grey/black hair with white streaks through it. As these are mainly passengers and will be sitting inside the trams they don’t have to be super detailed. I like the Basil Rathbone lookalike reading a book, yeah as if you could read a book while being jolted around in a tram.... Mind you I would be the last person to ask about artistic painting, I'm gunna be in real strife when I have to paint backgrounds.

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Nice paint job Trev. Will have to explore the painting lesson at a Games Workshop near me. I have some of those seated passenger too. Got a couple of sets from China some time back. Pitty that they do not do enough seated folks, so I cut the legs off a couple of them to put in the odd coach. Work quite well. As to what I did with the legs, well don't ask. Well being as you did has to do with bushes and 4 legs. But I should not post a pic on here as this is a clean run site.
JonD
 
Yes I think there are only 5 different seated poses in 22.5:1 in the cheap ones; http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/15-pcs-G...ies_Model_Railways&hash=item3a82097475&_uhb=1
A few more in smaller sizes (1:30, 1:32) that I also have and will use where the fact that their feet don't touch the floor is concealed....

I envy those with the skill to sculpt their own figures, there have been some superb ones in the forum.... Justification for a 3D printer and scanner????? There are heaps of 3D "people" files on the net....

The artists paints are good because the opacity is such that you only need 1 coat and the clear coat they use is also non yellowing polyurethane....
 
Trev, just remembered another tip that I got from a D and D mag re painting figures. They spray them Matt Black first then add colours. Doing it this way allows Shadows to remain in the crevices of the mouldings which enhances the shadows that you are looking for to bring out detail. Sometimes I think that the Wargamers and Fantasy guys overdo this a bit. But hey they certainly have great figure painting skills.
JonD
 
I had heard of the Matte Black technique but I used a mid grey primer/undercoat Tamiya stuff..... Does a similar thing but without harsh shadows.....
Here is my crowd after a coat of matte sitting awaiting their fate.

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dunnyrail said:
Trev, just remembered another tip that I got from a D and D mag re painting figures. They spray them Matt Black first then add colours. Doing it this way allows Shadows to remain in the crevices of the mouldings which enhances the shadows that you are looking for to bring out detail. Sometimes I think that the Wargamers and Fantasy guys overdo this a bit. But hey they certainly have great figure painting skills.
JonD
Click to expand...
Hey that's a good tip must remember that next time I do a bit of figure painting
 
A wargaming friend of mine has given me a few tips - one of which is that he always works from dark to light and does a lot of dry-brushing to bring up the highlights.

I came across this tutorial on Youtube which shows how to paint one of those diorama figures. It's over 2 hours long but worth dipping in for ideas and tips (eg like how to create a 'wet' palette with acrylics). There's a title on each section so you can skip to the bits you are interested in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw7KHKEdJLs

I'm still nowhere near my friend's or this chap's standard but it's useful to see how they achieve this sort of finish.
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And all this is on a 1/35 figure!
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Rik
 
Is that a 30/0 brush? Yeah it is.... cheating by not having to use a magnifying light.... This is a standard which for me is a "bridge to far".....
I'm too much into instant gratification to go to those lengths, I slap a coat of "flesh" colour onto the flesh then when dry a coat of sepia wash which sets out the detail in the face and that's it.:D:D
 
Fifteen more passengers arrived today. One is a “dude” with a baseball cap on backwards. Well I’ll be having none of that on my tramway so “baseball hat dude” was surgically modified with a 4grit drum sander. The peak of his hat was removed and his skull given a “brush back” with the 40grit. Looks OK too…..
I’m taking greater care with this lot; going over all the molding “flash” lines to smooth them out before spraying them with primer. I stick them to some heavy duty mounting tape to hold them while being primed.

I scored big time today too, in the Reject Shop at Weston there was a sales executive putting all the artists paints into a cardboard box from a “sale bin”. Casually so as not to alert her that I would buy some I enquired the price. “Oh we are getting rid of them, no one buys them and they are too expensive anyway”, so you are going to throw them out?????? “Yeah” Do you mind terribly if I help you dispose of them for you? “Oh help yourself” so I went through them and got as many as I could carry, then ducked into the “Plastic Containers” section and bought a plastic box to put the rest in. Must be my lucky day, 30 tubes of Jo Sonya’s acrylic paints for the cost of the $3 container…. Didn’t have any popular colours though apart from white, mind you I’m not complaining….


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Great stuff! If you find that acrylics dry too quickly for you and you don't get the blending effects that you want, try using water-soluble oil paint, eg Winsor & Newton "Artisan" range. Depending on which colours you use, you get a few days drying time.
 
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