I've generally been happy with blue-tape masking and rattle can paint, but that can be difficult. More recently, I started doing stripes with decals. These give much better results on the walls of my subway stations.
I make the decal stripes myself with my computer's inkjet printer and decal paper.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
One of the best there is on the market.......been using it for yrs. in all applications, from model, to proto. I also have used Tamiya, but, not as good as the 3M, In My opinion:
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/Scotch-Fine-Line-Tape-218/?N=5002385+3293241622&rt=rud
Did My share of Pro-painting full size cars & trucks, carried into Models.
Some examples.........:
Take Care!
Frank
I generally paint lighter colors first.
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My paint of choice is Scalecoate 2. In this line, the only colors that do not cover other colors all that well are yellows and oranges. Yellow and orange need to go on first over a tan, white, or light gray primer coat.
On the car you describe I would paint the whole car silver first, then the vermillion, and finish with black.
I have been using Tamiya brand masking tape lately after hearing many good things written about it in Fine Scale Modeler magazine. I have been getting similar excellent results with straight lines and positive color seperations.
I hope this helps.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I am ready to paint 3 American Flyer passenger cars in the black/vermilion/silver scheme of the New Haven. The roof down to the windows is black, the stripe over the windows is vermilion and the lower remainder is a dull silver. In order to avoid paint bleeding under the masking tape, I know that I should be painting the stripe area first, then masking the stripe off and repainting the vermilion over the tape (and the rest of the car) to seal it. From there, it would be painting the black followed by the silver. But painting over the vermilion has me worried as it is very red and hard to cover, especially with the silver. I think the black will cover okay. I am thinking of treating the silver lower area as the 'stripe', then painting the window area followed by the black roof. I would appreciate your thoughts. Lee in Tucson