I began disassembly and priming of one of the two train cars I picked up. I had originally seen these trains at Toys R Us in Matto about nine years ago. They are a deluxe version of a popular line of friction powered train toys that have light and sound effects. These are Hankyu 9000 series trains, a later version of the trains I used to commute when I was an exchange student in Kobe in 1997.
I didn't pick them up at the time because they were about twice the cost of the regular trains in the line. However they recently went OOP and I managed to snag two used ones on the intertubes. I wanted these because of the walk-through cab design that reminds me of the El in Chicago and NYC subway trains.
The intent is to use the bronze-base metal technique to make them look like scuzzy urban trains, then apply some blue striping and grafitti decals, before finishing off with a few washes to dirty them up more. For those not aware, the 'bronze-base' technique is a way to quickly paint tarnished metal by applying a drybrush of aluminum or gunmetal over a bronze basecoat. The peek-through of the bronze creates a rusty or grimy effect in the crevices. I tried this technique out on an Ameri-Towne building I had laying about and was very pleased with the results.
