Re-Painting an AZL loco?

Steve,

Thank you.

Your generosity is appreciated.

My interest would be in taking two- or more northeast-style Z scale MTL cabooses, airbrushing them a caboose red, and applying decals. This way, freights on a layout would look complete. Indeed, a caboose completes a layout, and, as we all know, everybody loves a caboose.

Scale model making—I’ve seen some incredible work with decals. There’s things like decal softener and a type of varnish that vanishes not only the edge of the decal but whatever is suspending the decal. ’Course none of it was for Z scale.

The paint schemes of 1950s northeast cabooses seem to have a common theme: White type on red body. The road name is spelled out; there’s a drum, herald, or circular logo; and then a road number. I’m referencing color and black-and-white period photos for Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland.

Myself: Have an Adobe background, both pixel-based and vector-based. Re-creates in Illustrator is very time-consuming. Doesn't matter how powerful the system one has or how artistically talented one is—It’s time consuming.

As for myself, I would avoid drawing from scratch. Rather, I’d look for the possibility of sourcing quality vector art in digital form and proceed from there.

Farming out work for final print production seems very wise.

Your sharing your notes is appreciated greatly.

Scott