Looks to me like you are doing great on these.
Thanks Paul appreciate it.
pin striping would look great but might be impossible for N-scale
When I considered pin striping I bought 2 sets of "Empire Builder" stripes from Microscale and was going to use them. 2 problems immediately jumped out at me:
1. The stripes looked white in the pictures but were in fact grey as well as yellow/gold and
2. they weren't long enough to cover the width of the car.
As such, I might forego the "pin striping" idea and go with one solid color.
Hmmm, a much tougher question.
But one - if you go black, I would say flat black not grimy black. The only grimy black roof's I've seen are on cars sitting on the scrap line.
And two - why not consider the same cream color as the stripe?. The more different colors that get thrown into the scheme the more it starts to look like a circus train.
and three - blue for the same reason above, in addition that would leave the attention to the window sash stripe, and logo.
and four - A huge difference in model paint schemes than prototype type is the "view" prototype equipment is very seldom observed from a bird's eye view, while that is the most common view for a model.
Medium grey would be yet another color.
It's funny you should mention the part in bold. After I put (tried to put) the white stripes I sat back and thought 2 things, I am trying to do way too much on the car for a first effort and, secondly, I need to reduce the number of colors I am using from 4 (black, white, blue and aged/off white/cream) back to maybe only 2. If I do that, then I am thinking about stripping it all down and repainting it solid blue with the white "window section".
What I was attempting to create was something that looked "luxurious", something like the "Orient Express" visually. I think the number of colors and, possibly, the color choice has failed to achieved that aim. Bottom line, I think I have seriously confused my ambitions with my abilities with this idea so need to simplify it if I want to get a better result.
If I do that, then the roof (and ends) will be the same color as the car and, as you pointed out, it wont make it look like a circus train. Also, if I paint them all the one color I wont have to worry about trying replicate things (exactly) from one car paint to the next.
You've done a really nice job Tony, Well done.
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Thanks Chet, appreciate your encouragement. As I mentioned in my reply to Horseman though, I think I am going to strip it down and repaint it one solid color. It took a lot of time to do what I did and, at the end of the day, it didn't achieve what I envisaged for a paint scheme. I have 6 cars to paint and to be honest, I can't see myself spending the time trying to replicate the paint scheme as shown on all 6. I need to keep it simpler for the sake of the time factor and to ensure a much better and consistent result.