Request for help painting a locomotive

[DuctTapeGuru]

I am, perhaps rather foolishly, attempting to repaint a TS locomotive; a CN SD75i to the new Ontario Northland scheme. Would anyone be willing to share techniques to turn the CN textures into grey blanks for repainting?

[TrainGuy6550]

Would anyone be willing to share techniques to turn the CN textures into grey blanks for repainting?

Try lowering the saturation to 0 and turning up the lightness and contrast. Should result in a clean slate, unless it has got designs, where you'd then have to experiment. (This is good for baked textures, by a 3D software)

If your textures are handmade / image textures (e.g. most models of gmax) you may just omit them completely and create your own repaint.

[DuctTapeGuru]

I did that, but the black in the original textures is already unsaturated. I had no effect on the black. Also the CN markings need to be masked in some manner.

[yellowdog]

I understand some people like the grey/blank textures but I sort of see it differently. You're either going to

A1) repaint to grey/blank and then
A2) repaint to the livery you want

Or

B) just repaint to the livery you want

I tend to just save myself a lot of repainting and just repaint straight to the livery I want.

[TrainGuy6550]

I did that, but the black in the original textures is already unsaturated. I had no effect on the black. Also the CN markings need to be masked in some manner.

Well, I don't deal with masks, as my editor of choice is PaintDotNet. But in your case, the best thing I see is a combination of the magic wand tool + pen tool (selection) + ability to save selections (if your editing software allows) for the masking part.

Regarding the black part, if it's already unsaturated, that's good I guess. You can lower or keep the lightness same. Add a multiply layer and add the designs and colors of your choice over it. Maybe every try the Color Burn blend mode.

I'm assuming you're referring to the following two locomotives (I'm from India, so I have never seen them IRL)

image.pngimage.png
The designs are very similar. Should be doable...
Without seeing your textures, I can't comment anything else.

[TrainGuy6550]

I tend to just save myself a lot of repainting and just repaint straight to the livery I want.

For certain rolling stock, that's a huge pain. Example: A band of color going all across the locomotive. Generally, the model author would create 2 UV islands for the front and back faces, and 2 UV islands for the body (front and back). If these UV islands are all same scale, then there's nothing to worry. You can simply copy the pixel height from one of them and use the same height across all UV islands giving you a smooth line without any interruptions.

However, even if one of them is scaled, you'd need to do the guesswork for quite a while to get the lines to match...
I haven't found a workaround to this, if you know something better do let me know. :3

In such cases, the model author's "guide" lines work really great.

[yellowdog]

If the author supplies the original blank textures, sure. But that's not what the OP is asking for. They're asking for someone to just provide grey textures. At which point the problem you describe still exists. Which is why I don't find the grey textures to be useful at all.

Modeling is, by default, guesswork, compromise, and, eventually, being ok with "close enough."

[DuctTapeGuru]

I tend to just save myself a lot of repainting and just repaint straight to the livery I want.

I think for repainting a CN livery, that's actually the easiest way to do it. I downloaded an ONR SD75I image from Trainiax to use as a template for door panels, latches and the like, then just started the repaint under those details with the panels, etc, layers set at multiply. It may take longer, but so far it's working nicely. The results look a bit artificial being far too clean, and I'm not skilled at weathering at all.

Modeling is, by default, guesswork, compromise, and, eventually, being ok with "close enough."

I've done hundreds of repaints, but very rarely upload them to the file library. If these end up being another addition to my private collection, then "close enough" is "good enough".

Screenshot 2026-07-12 150035.png
Actually the MLT Bala Sub SD75I, where I started, not the Trainsimulations one I've switched to.

Screenshot 2026-07-12 193032.png This is the livery I'm trying to do.