Applying magic to locos....

In April 2018, someone who used to a model railway guy, but who'd lost the passion for it, contacted me and asked: "please do your magic with my locos". 

I don't know much about model trains, so cannot tell you much about these but this is what they looked like:

I decided to (obviously) give them a rusted, abandoned, look and display them in two different settings: in the desert, and in a lightly vegetated are. I was going to keep it simple and do it quickly.

After lightly sanding the locos (I wanted to keep the main colours as a base coat), I airbrushed an uneven coat of Tamiya XF 64 to give some rust colour. Another light sand, along with a light scrub with a brass wire brush, to get some of the base colour to just start showing through in places, and then a light spray of matte black in places. 

These were two very simple, no-fuss jobs that took me a couple of days. The only reason that it took that long to finish was because the wood glue had to dry. 

I looked at reference photos to see how trains would rust and then added some yellow ochre in what I thought would be the right places.

A heavily diluted black wash was applied to take away the starkness of the yellow ochre, which I had applied too thick, and the locos were ready to be mounted.

For the bases, I usually use 18mm pine. I spread white glue all over the top and sides, and then put a bucket of sifted playpen sand over everything. After 24 hours, I shook the excess off, and the basis of the base was ready. 

Here I used dried java moss for the foilage, airbrushed light and dark green for variation. 

For the trees, I used branches from a local shrub and again, airbrushed light and dark green for variation.

This one was simple.

I covered the already coated base with white glue, then covered that with an extra layer of light-colured building sand. 
The "grass" was simply a few strands of twine - painted green.

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April 2018