Now the rest of the story.
Athearn hosts a live show every Tuesday at 3:30 CDT on Facebook and YouTube. Jim Wiggans is an affable host and showcases new products for ordering and fields some questions. He also has guests on from time to time and closes the last half hour of the show with some railfanning via the LIVE webcams on YouTube.
Athearn recently created a weathering contest this spring and it featured their Primed for Grime series boxcars. The entries had to choose between several boxcars as starting points and then take a photo of the model out of the box, then send in photos of their work for judging. I decide to do this as a fun and quick project. The prizes were an Athearn genesis engine for the winner, and some Athearn rolling stock for the runners up. The winner is also being invited to be on Athearn Train Tuesday to describe their methods for creating a weathered model.
Spoiler: I didn't win.
Anyways, I took enough pictures of my process I thought some of you might be interested in it. I had some oops moments but with weathering, it can all be fixed. Either add more dirt/rust or a paint patch.
Here is the starting point. BKTY 150670
I have taken the model apart. I used a 50/50 mix for grimy grey. Spraying a mix of Tamiya XF-69 and Tamiya XF-72 ( 20% each ) with 60% Tamiya lacquer thinner. Yes, lacquer thinner, yellow cap. I like this technique. I learned it from watching Military Modelers on YouTube especially a young man who has a channel named Panzermeister36. I also purchased some of the products he mentioned.
I wanted to channel three weathering artists I really like. Panzermeister36, Ralph Renzetti and Gary Christianson. Ralph does some of the best streaking work I have ever seen. Gary is a master of dirt and dust.
Now onto some washes. A new type of oil paint ( To me at least ) called Abteilung 502 was used. Mixed in a ratio of 20% ABT005 Smoke 20% ABT004 Bitume and 60% enamel thinner.
This was worked into the corners of the braces and allowed to dry for a few minutes. Then go at it with the thinner and make sure it only stays in the crevices.
This is where things went south. I tried a new technique of adding pigments while dry to the roof. I used three colors. I then used a wetting/binder agent and was going to blend the colors to make a rusted roof. The pigments were not fine enough and it turned into a mess. I ended up wiping off all of it and going back with my tried and true oil colors.
Here is the calm before the storm. Three colors of pigments dusted onto the roof. Panzermeister36 makes this look so easy. I made it look like a toxic cleanup area.
Here is my finished product. I figured a roof this bad would need resealing for leaks. I added some grey paint on the joints. This was to simulate the work of some unmotivated car repair person who was sent to the roof of the boxcar with a 20-gallon jug of Seal-Coat and a roller brush. Instructions from the boss included "Cover all the joints and be done by lunch". It needed to work, not be pretty.
One of my best friends in the hobby has a daughter with some skills as an artist. She likes the Animae style and I asked if I could commission a few drawings to use as graffiti. She agreed and I explained what I was looking for. I showed her the usual graffiti style and asked her to add a person or anime character into the works. She created several pieces and I scaled them down and sized them to fit on my boxcar. The BadAsche is her moniker on the creative website Deviant Art.
I went to the local FedEx ( Kinkos to us older folks) and used their high-quality laser printer to create some decals on Bare Metal Foil decal paper. Mistake number two. I used clear decal film. I should have used white background. When I applied the first decal on the boxcar, it disappeared into the dirt and grime. Sigh, now what.
I did what any self-respecting tagger would have done. I painted white background. I broke out the airbrush and painted the areas where the decals would be placed. It was a little too much overspray, but I added other tagger favorites such as paint circles and dots around their artwork.
Here you can see the dots made from a HO scale spray can. Also the scratches I added to the posts from the door sliding back and forth. Extra rust washed were added as well.
The underbody was painted in the same mix as the lower sides. The wheels and trucks were painted and weathered with a wash and powders. Everybody has their favorite way of doing this, so I won't bore you with mine.
Here we the 'Sword Guy' side. I also added modern reflective stripes from Smokebox Graphics Models. These are stick on and I placed them across the sill on each side. I made the dusty bottom using the Gary Christianson method from TMTV of Oil paint mixture. It is 50/50 of transparent orange oxide and white. Stippled on with a stiff brush, then use a soft brush to smooth it out. Creates the best dust effect I have ever seen on darker-colored cars. My TMTV subscription is worth it just for the weathering tutorials.
You can see the reflective stripes on the 'Cute Girl" side.
A better view of roof seal coating.
I like how it turned out. It will be used on FreeMo setups and hauling scrap paper for recycling from Eureka Recyclers in Minneapolis on my friend's Minnesota Commercial layout. His daughter and family thought it was neat to see her art come to life. I will be commissioning more work in the future.
Although I didn't win a prize, my car was featured on two episodes of Train Tuesday and used in Athearn's Social media advertising on Facebook. Fun project for a couple of weeks. Now back to the ore hauling.
