The STC in Scale Rails Magazine

From the "Never one to blow his own Nathan K5LA" comes this belated evidence that sometimes I do know what I'm talking about, allegedly, sorta, occasionally.

The second bullet lead? That would be my fault. Holy crap!

On a whim in 2008 I sent some photos and a draft about my freelanced paint schemes to the editor of Scale Rails, the National Model Railroad Association's monthly magazine. Amazingly enough, both the photoset and the draft were enthusiastically approved for publication. The only caveat was "someday". And thus I was introduced to the concept of painfully long publishing lead times.

I even got a photo lead on the Table of Contents. Sweet!

Amazingly, this post is over a year since the article went to print... which is not as long as I had to wait to see my work validated in print, ha ha.

Some of this may be old news to familiar readers and veteran modelers. But I have to say that even though I vividly remember creating these models, all the way from concept to sketch to paint booth to layout and photos... the thrill that came from seeing them in print for the rest of the world to see was completely unexpected. We live in a digital age, but there's something permanent and tangible about seeing your work recorded in a physical form factor, judged worthy and appreciated by a jury of peers. It IS just a hobby, but it's nice to be good at what you do.

Anyway, the article was basically the draft of what became the STC section of this website, so as I said... it's probably old and/or familiar news in some respects. But I do explain the genesis and creation of the paint schemes in more detail, so you might want to check it out anyway.

Download the article! ---> [Freelance.PDF] From the November 2009 issue of Scale Rails (since rebranded to NMRA Magazine)