Did he say all the VISION Hudsons would have the graphite colored boiler front, as opposed to the all black look?
Thomas, I believe that it only applies to the non-fantasy engines meaning 2531330 #5330 & 2531340 #5340 should have whatever the smoke box color is. #5330 is in the Dreyfuss scheme, and #5340 is in the Pacemaker smoke box looks more like silver. All the graphite colors are darker graphite(what Ryan said), I don't believe he means the graphite that the J3's were supposed to have, but then again this is the artist's rendition. The catalog image of #5344 looks like the whole thing is the same color black, being that maybe it is an actual model but who can say what. I don't know about the LCCA version because the color is not easy to figure out, looks grey to me.
I am interested to see what the Mr. Muffin's versions will look when the artwork gets done because that may or may not give us any sort of idea. I would message back to Ryan about what he means by darker graphite, but I may not get a reply. If I had thought about it when I was composing my email, I would have asked a more detailed question instead of, "it looks black on the smoke box, what color is it or is it all black?" What I should have asked would be more like is the smoke box color the traditional New York Central graphite like the 50th Anniversary Hudson, or like the (give example of really dark smoke box).