Designing a shadowbox diorama

[Bill Gill]

"Boomer Diorama" was a professional model maker who worked in film industry. He has many YouTube videos of both dioramas he occasionally builds and an HO layout he's building. He uses a lot of Tamiya paints and seems to thin them exclusively with isoprproyl alcohol with very good reults airbrushing and brush painting. For some thin washes he may dilute the paint as much as 1:10.

[Lawrence@NZFinescale]

The Tamiya XF paints and yellow cap thinner is a good starting point for a noob like me, but I alreasy see that the combo has some limits.

My understanding is that 'yellow cap' thinner is not the normal thinner for XF paint, but rather X-20A. The yellow cap is their lacquer thinner, and I believe it can be used and will produce a 'harder' finish - but as you note it's aggressive.

I hear iso-propanol (2-propanol) can be used - but that's aggressive too.  I use that in the ultrasound bath to strip paint.

Tamiya's MSDS tells you what's in X-20A (1-propanol 35%, 1 Propylene glycol-1-methyl ether 10%, and I assume the balance is water).  I've only ever used X-20A with XF paint and had no issues at all with it. It goes a long way if you use iso-propanol for cleaning the air brush.

[finescalerr]

I would guess that you'll end up with comparable results no matter what paint you ultimately choose. -- Russ

[Hauk]

I would guess that you'll end up with comparable results no matter what paint you ultimately choose. -- Russ

Good point. For me it is all about to stop procrastinating and start working.

But paint and thinners is really not so straight forward as I had hoped. I like the sheen and range of Mr. Color, but it does not work perfectly with Tamiaya thinners. So I need to get a bottle of their stuff to see if it works better. 

[Lawrence@NZFinescale]

Good point. For me it is all about to stop procrastinating and start working.

I can relate to that.  Getting the airbrush out was always a big deal to me and airbrushing was not something I looked forward to.  I brought a better airbrush and have a better set up now and with familiarity I use it all the time.  I still do a lot of procrastination on other things though...

[SandiaPaul]

As Bill mentioned Boomer has a lot of painting info and he also uses a lot of Vallejo paints and also uses IPA to thin. I hesitated to mention yet another source of info but since Bill did to I will second it. He hets excellent results.
Here is a link to one paint related video of his.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaw4Ipoivg8

[Hauk]

My painting skills still leave a lot to be desired, but the overall effect is not to shabby, me thinks. After painting the traction motors with matte Tamiya I was not happy about the finish, so I hit them with some gloss Mr. Hobby thinned with leveling thinner. A little oil wash finished the job. I thought about adding some more weathering, but it struck me that before taking the engine in for a major revision it would probably be washed down before work started.

[Barney]

Looks like a nice workshop finish - and not to dirty - very nice - nice touch the brass terminal
Barney

[Peter_T1958]

Absolute realistic! Subtle weathering, not overdone. Looks like a photo of the real racing!

[Hauk]

Absolute realistic! Subtle weathering, not overdone. Looks like a photo of the real racing!

Thanks!
I think it really is a stroke of good fortune that the prototype traction motors were indeed painted blue.
The contrast make them stand out a bit from the black sideframes.

[EZnKY]

Looks great Hauk!

[finescalerr]

Superb. -- Russ

[Bernhard]

Yes, that looks really good.

Bernhard

[fspg2]

My painting skills still leave a lot to be desired, but the overall effect is not to shabby, me thinks.

Don't be too critical of yourself. It looks great!

[Hauk]

Don't be too critical of yourself. It looks great!

Some of you probably  think I'm being coy, but there's definitely room for improvement. I received overwhelming praise on a French forum for supposedly achieving such a nice hammered paint effect. But I absolutely did not try to imitate hammered paint! My goal was to achieve the smoothest finish I possibly could. The result just happened to resemble hammered paint... That said, I'm very happy with the overall impression — and to be honest, a little impressed with myself!

And how could you not develop at least a bit of self-criticism when hanging around with the big guys on this forum? When you're posting in the same place as some of the best model builders in the world, a bit of self-criticism is only appropriate. And make no mistake, I am really happy with the progress in the workshop lately.