Red lines

Lindberg's box art suggests the lower portion of the superstructure should be painted red. If I was any good at masking things, this would be fairly easy to apply - tape over the white to stay and blast with red paint.

If I try that, there will be all sorts of paint creep thanks (partly) to the those raised plank lines.

Plan B - Using tape to give me a guide, draw along the top edge of the red with a bow pen and then paint the rest with a brush. The lined line gives me a guide to work to. At least it follows the gentle curve upwards towards the front of the superstructure. Can't do that with a ruler.

And that's sort of what happened. The line wasn't perfect, the Tamiya tape is very thin so not was easy to follow as I'd hoped. A Bob Moore pen would probably have been a better choice in this respect.

Still, a couple of coats of red, a bit of fiddling and the result looked OK.

Since this is to be a weathered model, I burnished the red with a fibre pen to give it some wear. The pale grey base colour shows through in a few places and I quite like the effect. It's something I've done on PO railway wagons, but this is a new slant and I'm sure I'll do it again one day.