Having figured out the mapping the next thing to do is to get samples of the correct colors to use for the livery that you have chosen to paint. There are three ways to do this:

1. Try and match the colors by eye ... not recommended, but if you can do this, this is a valid way to go.
2. Go to the 3Dtrains.com site and get an exact match of colors for the livery of your choice. They have an excellent table for almost all railroad livery colors from Railways around the world.
3. Or my preferred method, color sampling ... but before I go into that discussion at lengths, you need to make a decision.

Do you want a CLEAN or a WEATHERED version of the locomotive that you have chosen to paint?

This is an important decision to have to make as it will determine how you progress with your project. The choice of whether you decide to have a clean or weathered finish is up to you. This tutorial will teach you to paint a locomotive and weather it so that it is as close to the prototype as possible. Your decision will affect the color palette that you will be using. If your choice is for a clean finish, then get the RGB colors from the 3Dtrains.com site and enter these into your palette. If you wish to have a weathered unit, proceed to the color sampling discussion in PART 11 on the next page and also read the tutorial on weathering locomotive textures on this site:

Colors in graphic applications are defined in different ways. One method is to descibe the colors numerically from 0-255 in terms of their RGB values.

• R = Red
• G = Green
• B = Blue

I use Corel Picture Publisher 8 for all my graphics, but all professional graphic applications are similar and all allow you to edit the palatte. Refer to the instructions for your application if your program operates differently, but all you need to do is to enter the correct values for the color that you want and it will be available for you to use. Just remember to save the palette under a different file name as you probably do not want to overwrite the default palette.

If you have decided to paint your locomotive clean, you will want to enter the values now for all the colors that you need to use. If you have decided to weather your locomotive you may skip this step, or do as I have and enter the colors into your palette anyway so that you will have a "control" reference.

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