Moin, they are useful for nothing whatsoever, but then, they are fun to make and to look at when they're finally done, and maybe other people round here like them too: Some out a few (a few hundred, that is) drawings I made over the years. In varying scale, varying levels of skill and detail. Maybe you recognize some of these from our common favourite trainsim game
I can see where DTG is coming from not wanting mess with THAT license - I didn't want to either, as could genuinely see the Branson empire going after some random painter on deviantArt who doesn't even make money from using their logo. Still wanting to draw that (fairly badass to be honest) livery, I did this: Maybe something like that - or just leaving the logos out entirely - could also be an option to revive these DLCs later TrainSim-Matt ? NWC is one of the more popular TS routes after all. Always looking for inspirations for what to draw next by the way, so if anyone has an idea, lemme know!
What software do you use to make these? I would like to draw one locomotive. As for the inspiration. Take a look at some of the Eurocity trains. There are always interesting paint jobs to be found.
The software? Oh... unless you're with the CIA, the Pentagon, MI6, or any other outlet of the illuminati... forget about it. It's so damn top secret software, you're not going to get your hands on it. I can tell you the name though, maybe you find it on the black market somewhere. It's called MS Paint. The Windows XP version, I should add. Eurocity? Like Eurofima coaches and such? DB, ÖBB, SBB... these?
I mean an Eurocity train with an interestingly painted locomotive and coaches from various countries that the train runs through. Something like this:
Nice job! These are fantastic! The Virgin trains are especially awesome. Have you heard, by the way, that Virgin Trains has bought a high speed rail line in the US? It's called Brightline and runs in Florida.
Speaking of America.. I hardly ever did US stuff, but a bit now and then, yes. Like.. Two trains overall. Ispired by "the other" trainsim though rather than TSW.
Not as of now unfortunately. Been wanting to do some F40s and the likes for a while, maybe I'll get to them one day.
cool I would definitely like to see the metro north m8 added sometime in the future or the M7 in the future as well.
A misfortune we will never see this or other Virgin trains for TSW. DTG recently retired the license with the end of WCML.
Aight, they're on the wishlist Weird actually, it wasn't that long they posted the article about visiting Virgin. Looks like something didn't go as planned by DTG either.
I think that's what surprised people the most. The fact that it looked like Virgin would make an entrance soon and then them say we'll never get them as a railway.
Well that's Virgin for ya -.- Bad thing for us players tho, if I were DTG I'd rather not work with them again if that's how they want to be like.
I know the feeling. BNSF is a American railroad I'd like to see since they have many Amtrak trains running as well as Union Pacific running on their tracks. But they won't sell content to anyone except for the US. I'm in the US, but not everyone is.
Oh yeah... I was so excited when I saw Marias Pass was available for TS20xx... except it wasn't available to me. It's strange. I mean, I can see what the point of "Buy American" is, but sell American? I don't get it. And then its such a fabulous livery I'm excluded from...
Some more American stuff was wished for. Well while these are American, they aren't exactly diesels as was wished for to be precise..
Not necessarily! When it comes to drawing something precisely down to individual pixels, there's hardly anything more suitable for the job than the good old MS Paint. Photoshop? GIMP? As powerful and impressive as they are, that kind of work is not what they were meant and designed for. Paint meanwhile is pretty much as down to the metal as it gets. Some help from GIMP sometimes does speed things up of course, for example when I need a smooth gradient for a curved roof, or even more an actual gradient in the paintjob from one color to a completely different one, as opposed to just the brightness. Think the stripe on NJT locos, or the dark green Arriva Trains Wales livery or such. In other cases, like when the curvature of the roof is just a single-digit number pixels tall in the drawing, it can in fact be quicker to just manually punch in slightly higher brightness value.
Yes I suppose it it simple and effective. You'll spend less time fiddling in menus and more time doing what you're enjoying, drawing. Oh they've gone by the wayside, it's Transport for Wales now. Quite a nice colour scheme actually. Maybe on a drawing near here soon?
As you wish! Yeah.. all the old stuff needs to get upgraded with a front aspect now, only started that with the M3 now, to up the game a little for the new decade.
Good grief that MS Paint is ruddy fast at producing drawings! I'm disappointed there's no TfW 158. Very poor.
Sorry, didn't make any 158/159 one yet, so that'll take a while. Let me put it in Dovetail's words for new features: Definitely. In the future. One day. Definitely. To be fair, that's actually quite close to how I do these sketches. I've set myself the goal to have at least one railway train and one tram/metro from every country in the world*, and I'm still so far from that, jeez. *As long as they have any trains. So, sorry Andorra and Iceland, you ain't gettin' any!
I'll let you off then. As a matter of interest to change a livery do you erase/paint over an existing drawing or do you start from scratch? I didn't realise that about Iceland not having any full railways. Interesting.
Usually that's done by just copying a file, giving the copy the appropriate name (say, Class 150 Arriva -> Class 150 GWR) and painting over the existing livery in the new file. Except for example, one company chooses to introduce a new livery, than the existing file gets expanded by the new livery. Like when DB came up with the green paint scheme for the BR 422 all the way up in the opening post here, or indeed the two different Arriva liveries for their 150s. The only difference being, they both existed already before I did the drawing, so it started out with two vehicles in it in the first place. Especially for older vehicles that can amount quite a number of paintjobs in one drawing, as long as they just stay within one company. Like these ones, the BR 139/140, that served with DB from the mid-50s up to about 2010.
These are so full of detail! I'd love to see an F40PH-2CAT (like the one in TSW)! Very nice. It'd also make for a good poster to mount on the wall with all the different trains.
MainlineDiesels sells (or used to sell?) something very similar to that. No F40s though as far as I'm aware, only Euro stuff. https://www.mainlinediesels.net/index.php?nav=1000603&lang=en&id=8272&action=shownews#.XhJd8fwxmUl They actually inspired me to make compilations like that as well, as soon as every single variation of a vehicle type has been finished. Except that hasn't happened yet
Why only let DTG post teasers for their upcoming projects... What could that be? Also, since I don't want to spam the forum too much with these, if you want to see all that ever got or will get made, maybe have a look here: https://www.deviantart.com/railroadsaturday Not sure if it's necessary to login to see something though.
Is it a drawing of a train? Do I win a prize? No I didn't have to log in to view your pictures. Edit: There's a lot of them!
Damn you're good! If I still could I'd SO downvote you for spoiling the fun for the others. First to guess it right wins several shiploads of tea! I didn't state how, where and in what condition though, mind you!
These are fantastic. I was wondering what program you use to put them together? Would love to give it a go myself!
Hey can I ask you, how come they are so accurate to the real life counterpart? Do you base your drawings off blueprints or is just the magic of a skilled person working?
OK, that one might take a bit longer to explain. It's a mixture of both essentially. Many things I eyeball, but it also involves an awful lot of Alt-Tabbing back and forth between MS Paint and a photo, preferably one taken from the same flat side angle. Checking again and again and again if it looks right. The most difficult part in that btw, is proportions. Getting every single part - windows, doors, hatches, vents, and equally important, the areas between these... The correct height to witdh ratio, and the right distance from each other. A bit of technique helps too, for example one trick my arts teacher at elementary school told us: "If you're going to draw the Titanic (it was 1998 so what else would anyone draw), don't think Titanic. Think "the windows of the bridge of the Titanic" (or whatever other part) and get them alright. And then work outward from there." What makes train a bit easier, is that they're mostly built in a very repetitive way. All the windows are the same, (as far as dimensions go, some maybe be openable, have destination panels integrated and what not ofc) all the doors are the same, once you get one right, you got them all right. That being said, I'm absolutely sure every single one of these drawings has its fair share of inaccuracies. Eyeballing things just does that. In some hard cases It can be helpful to copy-paste a technical drawing into paint and using that as a guide, gauge, whatever you want to call it. These "hard cases" also might be quite the opposite of what people might think. Take the DB BR 218 diesel for example. Covered in vents and details all over, meaning plenty of outlines and contours and corners that you can measure and judge against each other. (Nevermind the way too intense traffic red, that still needs to be updated) Now compare that to the rather plain and empty sheet metal of, say, the BR 146 at the very top, or a Class 47, which needs to be in a height to lengh ratio of (numbers made up) 8 to 67, that's virtually impossible to eyeball. That was one case where I had to cheat with a technical drawing. Oh, and another tip: Avoid if at all possible using model railways as a reference, they can be intentionally built to the wrong proportions, so they'll work better on layouts with tight corners. Even screenshots from trainsims* etc. tend to be safer than Hornby, Märklin etc. But here also remains the problem that you never know for sure how accurate these models really are. Primary sources (meaning, the real thing) is always preferable. And speaking of Titanic, who says you can only draw trains that way? *I've found TSW models to be damn near as good as a photo though, very very accurate recreations there for what I can tell.
