Bad paint day

I need a couple of 009 coaches for a photo. Buying RTR isn't cheap - I can have 3 kits for the price of one coach. No problem, the Dundas kits go together well enough, I just have to paint them.

Thinking a nice 2-tone livery would look good, but with the spray booth out of action, I decided to achieve a neat line, I'd dig out the bow-pen and draw a paint "dam" along the body.

After a little bit of tinkering with the consistancy of the Humbrol paint, this seemed to work well. I need more practice with the bow-pen, but the line was far better than I could achieve with a brush.

Once the lines were on, I filled the rest using a brush and the effect wasn't too bad. Good enough for my purposes anyway. The only trouble is, the matt paint looked a bit flat. Reds need a bit of gloss to bring them alive.

Even I won't brush varnish, but a rattle can of Humbrol satin was to hand and I shot this over the body.

 The plain ends were perfect. On the sides though, the paint turned into a crackle finish - disaster!

My guess is that I'd given the ends a very light waft, but the sides got more varnish. Maybe they weren't fully dry, maybe the model making gods weren't smiling on me. Whatever, it was a trip to the Supastrip bath for these...