painting the neverwassa

I have been painting the County, and have been doing it rather differently to how I'd normally do it (i.e. spray paint).  Dublo locos, especially the earlier ones all had a hand painted finish to their paintwork.  I don't know if this was the case, I imagine they must have been sprayed but I may be wrong.  To replicate this I brush painted the body with Humbrol satin black paint.....which came out matt.  Hmmm how did that happen.

It doesn't matter, as I will be varnishing the model afterwards.  I'm currently lining out the loco, with Modelmaster lining decals.  I'm not keen on lining, I've done it in 7 1/4" gauge but never OO (all my locos have been goods black!).  So far its gone ok, not brilliant and certainly not Dublo standard but it looks ok to me. 

I have varnished the body with Ronseal satin floor varnish.  Left in an airing cupboard this will go very thin, and is easily brushed on.  This sounds rather cavalier but there is a reasoning to it, Dublo did market some models with a gloss finish for a time, and the County appears to be the same in appearance now to these gloss models. 

The nameplates have arrived from Modelmasters too.  They are excellent (never bought any from them before) and as soon as I've figured out how to fit them (you'll see!) they'll go on.

Pictures when its tidied up and the varnish is dry, in the meantime, here is a gloss N2 to show you what I mean, the livery is the same too.