SkyKing

Has anyone done a photo walkaround of this locomotive? It's in a museum in Georgia. I have a Kitmaster HO/OO scale kit and would like to build it in its Civil War configuration, but need further details. A distant relative of mine was an engineer for the Western & Atlantic RR (but not General).

My understanding is that there are (or were) plans to put the entire line back into production, but I have not heard further details in quite some time.

Saturday, May 19, 2012 9 a.m. — 5 p.m. Mesquite Convention and Events Center 1750 Rodeo Drive Mesquite, TX 75149 (I-635 Exit 4) This year's special theme is "Operation TORCH." Admission is $9.00 for adults, $1.00 for juniors. Model registration fees are $2.00 per model for adults, $1.00 per model for juniors. Hotel rooms available at a reduced rate at the Hampton Inn and Suites adjacent to the Events Center. Call 972-329-3100. Be sure to mention "ScaleFest." Vendor tables are $40 for a 2'6" x 8'0" table. For more details, contact: www.ipmsnct.net Facebook: Ipms Nct scalefest2011@gmail.com

WEM recommends a good quality mineral spirits, not lacquer thinner.

Here are some sites I have bookmarked: http://japaneseaircraft.multiply.com/photos/album/50/IJA_Colors http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~cocoro/sub117e.htm http://www.j-aircraft.org/smf/index.php?topic=4704.0 http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/gregspringer/wem-review/wem-review.htm http://www.modelingmadness.com/earlya6mcolors.htm http://www.straggleresearch.com/

"Weathering for weathering's sake." :D Love it! That's a perfect description of the "Spanish school" (which I don't care for at all, in case there is any doubt). Although his scratchbuilding and hand-painting skills are awesome.

For lunar module color info, see Paul Fjeld's Lunar Module Coatings Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~pfjeld/lmdata/index.html

I'd like to put in a good word for Federation Models of Palm Bay, FL, and its owner, Tracy Brownfield. (http://www.federationmodels.com/). I recently ordered a conversion kit for NX-2000 (starship Excelsior in its original ST III: TSFS form), a limited production resin item intended for the AMT/Ertl kit. The item arrived in about a week, well packaged, but upon examination, was missing a key item. I immediately emailed Federation, and in less than a week, received the missing part. I've not done a lot of business with Federation, but I believe it to be a one-person operation, and this kind of customer service is better than I have received from many major manufacturers with large customer service departments. I think it deserves mention, and I recommend Federation Models for your sci-fi modeling needs. Full disclosure: I'm not affiliated with Federation Models in any way except as a very satisfied customer.

"An inexpensive, vector based tool specifically for making decals is available from DecalGear " I looked at this and it appears to be just what the guy is looking for. Check it out. I looked at it also, and it appears to meet his needs. Too bad there's not a Mac version available, or I'd get it myself! I'd stay away from any decal paper other than that sold by Tango Papa (http://www.tangopapadecals.com/prod01.htm), however, unless you only have an inkjet printer.

Importing a scanned raster image is possible, but automatic vectorizing is problematic. Photoshop allows you to create paths based on colors and shades and then export those paths into Illustrator, where the paths then can be used to create a vector object. But what I generally do is import the scan into Illustrator as a template on its own layer, and then re-draw on top of it in a separate layer (or layers). Illustrator is very good with gradients, and gradients created in Illustrator look much better than one imported from Photoshop, but the quality of the output will depend on your printer and how good it is. If you need photo-realistic decal artwork (and here some of the elaborate schemes painted on Tiger Meet aircraft come to mind), then Photoshop is what you want. But for most decal applications (national insignia, roundels, code letters, unit badges, even nose art), Illustrator or a similar vector program is what you need.

The task is not as simple as it may seem, and I speak as a former editor for Squadron/Signal Publications who was intimately involved in these sorts of things. There are a lot of technical details to printing, especially color printing, whether printing a book or printing decals, and mastery of the details is important to achieving the desired result, even if only printing a simple decal at home using your computer. As to software, please see my message of 10 January.

Question about pixilation: Even if a vector-based program tells the printer "Red No.499124", or whatever, isn't there gonna be some intrinsic pixilation in the image, based on how a printer "mixes" and applies a field of that particular color from the Cyan, magenta, Yellow & Black inks? You may see some halftoning (i.e, a dot pattern resulting from the way the printer mixes the basic colors to achieve the desired result), but this is not the same as pixelation. There are no pixels in a vector-based program because the objects created in such a program are described for the printer mathematically, much like a CAD program.

You don't want Photoshop or any pixel-based program; you need a vector-based program such as Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Hate it. Turns a scale model into an "art object' and cartoonish caricature of the real thing. As to panel lines, I have found that the best effect is obtained from a wash of a transparent acrylic paint such as Tamiya Smoke or similar, just enough to give a slightly darker shade of the underlying color as if it's in shadow, applied with a thin brush and letting capillary action do its thing. Adding a drop or two of Windex or dish washing detergent to the wash helps it flow into the panel lines better. Of course if there are no engraved panel lines you do have a problem. My friend Rusty White once achieved excellent panel line effects on a 1/72 XB-70 by using a finely sharpened 6H drawing lead to lightly draw them on the white finish. Turned out great. Remember, in 1/72 subtlety is the key to success. When you look at a 1/72 scale model from one foot away, it's like looking at the real thing from 72 feet away. How much detail can you see at that distance?

A company called Highliners makes some outstanding kits of the GM F-units, both A and B. You can build just about any variant of these locos, as plenty of extra parts are included. They can be hard to find, however, as the same tooling is used for Athearn's "Genesis" F-units. They are body shell kits only, so you'll need to find chassis elsewhere. Walthers stocks Highliners kits.

After a loooong search I was finally able to obtain a Mission Models chisel recently. Now I'm looking for the micro chisel and scribing attachments for same. However, the Mission Models web site appears to be in need of updating; there are many broken links, and many of the products, including those I'm looking for, are listed as out of stock. They don't seem to be available locally, either. So has this company gone belly up?

Fire up the Songbird, Penny! Looks good.

Richard Datin, the man who is responsible for building the original 11-foot miniature Enterprise for TV's "Star Trek," has died at the age of 82. More here: http://culttvman.com/main/?p=16136

Does anyone do decals for the Texas Department of Public Safety's highway patrol cars in 1/24 or 1/25? I'm out of my comfort zone here.

Can any member in New England help with this request: The New Hampshire Aviation Museum which is located at the Manchester-Boston Regional airport will be commemorating the Centennial of Naval Aviation from February 19th to March 31st and we are looking for a 1/72 model of a Douglas A3-D Skywarrior to display. I know that they are out of production, would you have any sources that we could contact that might have one for sale? Also go to www.NHAHS.org to check out our Museum. Thank you, Richard L. Fortin Docent, NHAHS 55 Amory St., Apt. 550 Manchester, NH., 03102 603-622-7117 If you can assist, please contact the Museum directly. Thanks.

Well, I'd still suggest Illustrator, but if cost is a consideration, here is where you can get a free, open-source vector drawing program that runs on Linux, Windows 2000/2003/XP, and Mac OS X: http://inkscape.org/

None that I know of. Any computer art program can be used to produce artwork for decals, so decal-specific software is really not necessary. What you need is a vector program with a large selection of color libraries, including the Pantone colors used by just about every printer, if you intend to produce decals commercially. Adobe Illustrator is my recommendation.

Another formula for scale effect is to add white by an amount equal to the square root of the scale denominator; i.e., for 1/24, approximately 5%, for 1/32 approximately 6%, for 1/48 approximately 7%, for 1/72 approximately 9%, etc. This gives a more subtle fading of the paint which I find far more realistic. And a 1/48 scale model does not have 1/48 the surface area of its full-size prototype; it has 1/(48 x 48) = 1/2304 the surface area. It's an inverse square relationship, not a linear one, because area is a square (power of 2) function of the linear dimensions. A 1/72 scale model has 1/5184 the surface area of its full-size counterpart. So the reflective area does play an important role in the appearance of the model.

Welcome, Max. There are two major IPMS chapters in the DFW area, IPMS North Central Texas and IPMS Fort Worth. IPMS NCT meets on the second Sunday of the month at the Irving Garden and Arts Center in Irving. I live in Carrollton just off I-35E, and you're welcome to ride with me to the next IPMS NCT meeting on Sunday, Jan. 9. Shoot me a PM or email me at skyking918(at)verizon.net if interested.

I just hope the interior is more accurate than the exterior, which should simulate lapped panel joins and round rivets instead of trenches and divots to hold "washes" and "filters." No B-17 ever looked like what that kit's surface "detail" purports to portray. It's truly sad when accuracy has to be sacrificed for the latest modeling fads, especially in a product which could break new ground. When it was founded (and I was there shortly thereafter), IPMS was about building accurate models, not "pretty" ones built to a formula.