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"Painted" Locomotive Drawings

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"Painted" Locomotive Drawings
Posted by cnw8052 on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 3:51 PM

 Thought I'd share my hobby of painting locomotive drawings. The drawings are my own work. I create fantasy schemes of fallen flags, and existing railroad schemes. Here's a small sample. 

 Enjoy

 

CB&Q EMD GP38-2 in the black/gray scheme. I changed the gray nose stripes to white. I think it contrasts better.

CB&Q 2100">

Next is an SD60 is CB&Q's Chinese red scheme.

CB&Q 3800">

 

And third is SSW GP60 9703. The drawing depicts the way the prototype unit looked in 2008. I have yet to add some weathering to it.

 SSW 9703">

 

 More to come......

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Posted by trainfan1221 on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 9:46 PM
Its always nice to imagine what could have been. The SD50\60 was a good looking locomotive that probably would have done a lot of classic paint schemes justice. Nice work..keep it coming.
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Posted by cnw8052 on Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:27 AM

 Thanks.

Yes it is.

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Posted by Lyon_Wonder on Sunday, August 23, 2009 1:46 PM

I wonder would SSW have adopted “Speed Letting” for the Cotton Belt had SP kept SSW as a subsidiary into the 1990s?  It would be neat to see a speed lettered Cotton Belt logo.   

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Posted by MJChittick on Sunday, August 23, 2009 3:16 PM

Lyon_Wonder

I wonder would SSW have adopted “Speed Letting” for the Cotton Belt had SP kept SSW as a subsidiary into the 1990s?     

The Cotton Belt (SSW) remained a wholey owned subsidiary of the Southern Pacific until 1992 when it was consolidated within the parent company (SP).  In 1996, Union Pacific absorbed the entire Southern Pacific operation which, by that time, also included the D&RGW.

 

Mike

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Posted by Railfan1 on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 6:08 PM

Very nice, how long does it take you to do one of these?

"It's a great day to be alive" "Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, It might have been......"
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Posted by Tugboat Tony on Friday, August 28, 2009 3:56 AM

Remember the UP purchased the Rio Grande; Who happened to own the SP and SSW. They just kept the SP name for marketing reasons

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Posted by cnw8052 on Friday, August 28, 2009 6:29 AM

 Thanks.

 Depending on the paint scheme and how much time I have, it can take a few days to a few weeks.

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Posted by silicon212 on Friday, August 28, 2009 11:27 AM

Tugboat Tony

Remember the UP purchased the Rio Grande; Who happened to own the SP and SSW. They just kept the SP name for marketing reasons

They purchased RGI which was the parent of SP (and what was the D&RGW).  The D&RGW had already been fully merged into the SP by the time Uncle Pete came to the table.

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Posted by cnw8052 on Saturday, August 29, 2009 6:48 AM

 Perhaps it would've looked something like this???

 

Lyon Wonder wrote:

I wonder would SSW have adopted “Speed Letting” for the Cotton Belt had SP kept SSW as a subsidiary into the 1990s?  It would be neat to see a speed lettered Cotton Belt logo.  

"> 

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Posted by NSdreamer on Saturday, August 29, 2009 6:57 PM

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3-D unlike others

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Posted by Lord Atmo on Sunday, September 6, 2009 6:02 PM

 Woohoo! Thanks for starting the party, Larry. It's about time everyone saw your work!

 We talk a lot outside of the forums and as such, I have also painted several of his drawings myself. Here's a few of my paintjobs:

  Like Larry's SP SD60T, I went with the speed lettering scheme for this unit. Tried to keep detailing close to how SP painted their GP60s.

 

 You know....I was never keen on MoPac painting their SD50s in UP colors. So I went ahead and gave an SD60 some more traditional MP colors.

This particular unit would've been what CNW 8007 became if the lease hadnt expired beforehand. This may seem unusual for me to give a UP unit an ex CNW number, but that's only because I gave this unit plenty of additional detail. Miniwings, flag, Z stripe. So it actually looks good instead of that boring-as-dirt red text scheme that all of UP's SD60s wore.

How bout some regional love! This is one of my favorite paint jobs too. The scheme takes to the long SD60 quite nicely! It's too bad IAIS probably won't lease any that the class 1s returned.

 

There's just a few that I've painted. Larry, you were 3D'ing the IAIS unit? I can't remember. I just know I sent you all the files for your collection :P

Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.

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Posted by cnw8052 on Sunday, September 6, 2009 6:24 PM

 Nice!!!!! We'll have to keep this thread going. I have alot more to post when I get time.

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Posted by CMStPnP on Monday, September 7, 2009 11:45 AM

So what kind of paint are you using for these?    Looks like oil based.   Are you painting them digitally or one masonboard or what exactly? 

Just curious.    I used to draw locomotives when I was under 18.   Perspective is tricky when it is a 3/4 view, so is scale.

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Posted by cnw8052 on Monday, September 7, 2009 12:45 PM

 We're "painting" these digitally.

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Posted by UnionPacific3985 on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 4:15 PM

Where did you get the unpainted drawings?

Union Pacific Challenger #3985 North Little Rock, AR June 20, 2004
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Posted by cnw8052 on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:22 PM

 I draw them myself. There are online sources for similar drawings that you can download. One site is here:

http://trainiax.net/mescaleloco.htm
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Posted by CMStPnP on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:42 PM

cnw8052

 We're "painting" these digitally.

Thanks.   You can tell me if I am being too nosey here.   I just started my own website with it's own discussion forums.    Not railroad related.    I am a computer programmer right now.

So one last question, so are you digitally painting these with Photoshop CS4?  Photoshop Elements? what package.    Again, no interest on my own of painting locomotives just curious in the graphics package.    So the graphics package is what I am really interested in here BUT for another purpose.     I tried Photoshop Elements a little with my website theme (background) and it worked pretty well with blending colors.

Again, if you don't want to answer thats fine....just curious.

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Posted by Lord Atmo on Thursday, October 15, 2009 9:12 PM

 I can answer this one...He uses paint. Simple as that. We both do. PS is just too expensive :P

Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.

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Posted by enr2099 on Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:38 PM

BC Rail GEVO. Blank drawing by Michael Eby from his website http://trainiax.net/

Tyler W. CN hog
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Posted by Lord Atmo on Saturday, October 24, 2009 11:25 AM

 Very nice! I especially like the E-bell on the cab there. That was clever and an interesting idea. I used to paint Mike's drawings as well. But I've come to enjoy Larry's larger scale drawings with multiple angles more. Still Mike does some really neat work!

 

One thing though... Shouldn't it have a white or yellow sill stripe? After all, the FRA requires that. And personally I think a white one would look very nice on this locomotive. But that's just a thought

Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.

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Posted by BerkshireSteam on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 2:45 PM

You guys used MS PAINT!?!?!?!?!? Man, I've done some in there using that link given a few threads up and they never looked that good. I mean besides my stupid paint keeping it in .gif format so the colors are off. I started having trouble getting the basic non-painted wire frame saved in a .jpeg or .btmp so I could use the color charts supplied from that site and not be off but no real luck. I really like that MOPAC one, almost makes me wish they lasted lol.

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Posted by cnw8052 on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:49 PM

 You have to save your blank outline drawing as a 24-bit bitmap, otherwise the lines will shift color. Same goes for your pained versions. If you paint a drawing, then save as a jpeg or gif, the colors will be funky and distorted.

 The solution, keep all your drawings as 24-bit bitmaps. They are larger in file size, but they retain proper color and quality.

To share on the internet, just convert them to jpeg using a photo editing program.I use a free program called PixResizer. It's free and easy to use.

http://pixresizer.en.softonic.com

 

To archive the originals, and to save disk space, convert them to a zip file.

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Posted by cnw8052 on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:54 PM

 Here's a Rock Island "what-if" with a modern boxcar.

 

 

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