Taggers canvas

Most of us at the club have a strict no graffiti policy, principally because we don't want to encourage it, even at the modeling level. I have some appreciation for the skill involved, but not the application of that skill on the chosen "canvas." 

Ditto to Matt Jackson.  The nearby city has had some success busting people for applying this to private commercial buildings.  Some of the O scale decal sets provide for chalkmarks such as , "Kilroy was here", etc., from out of the past, and those I might use. Walmart (and others) selections of colors in their el cheapo brand that I use have disappeared (I no longer find the previous variety in stores) and I wondered if that abuse of the paint was why?  Luckily, in my modeled era, the problem did not exist.

Most graffiti is unsightly garbage. Very rarely is it creative and artistic like this ...

Ace: that might even have enhanced that beatup boxcar, but you wonder how long was

it sitting out of the way and unseen, that somebody could reach those heights and do

that?  Maybe parked for years, like some I saw entangled in kudzu, lost on a forgotten

siding.

I'm not a fan of defacing anyone else's property.  It's a criminal act, and certainly only considered art by those who have no sense of social responsibility (they probably don't even know what the term means).

When you look closely at the center ring on the spaceship,

you can just barely see: I buried Paul. 

Well said Allan, I couldn't agree more.  I would hate to think of the dollars it costs the Railroads to repaint their equipment.

Chris

Yes, I agree with you too Allan. I never have looked at this as art and I don't understand how anyone would consider it ok either.

On a modeling level this artform is as unappealing as it is on the prototype frankly. Some will disagree in their pursuit of realism...to each their own.

Bob

I didn't like graffiti on anything especially in neighborhoods however, some of the so called art on these cars goes far beyond just graffiti. I saw a tank car with killer whales and the like painted on it . The car above looks like it was freshly done as its bottom half is painted out brown instead of the blue. The rocket is nice too and I can live with such graffiti as all the writting I can never make out what they say.

I agree with Allan's statement, if the property they are tagging is not there's then it is against the law. 

It is not art no matter how nice it is, it is a criminal act plain and simple. Look at it this way, would you like your house to be tagged? 

I saw where a N scale manufacture is selling a set of 4 or 5 Auto Racks that are 'famous' as the cars are covered with graffiti across the entire set of cars. This really seems like making graffiti 'legit' and acceptable when it's not. I know they are just making a model of a real life item.....but some things do not need to be modeled. I do have a few graffiti markings on my model train cars.....a few 'Killroy was here' in 'chalk' on some 40's era cars.  

What gets me is when there are newly built and painted freight cars with sloppy bad graffiti on the sides covering up important data and reporting marks. If they are such great artists stick to painting freight cars that are very old and rusty. If you have to paint something, help out by covering the rust spots.

Andrew

The nice thing about being totally in charge in your little world is that you can pick and choose what parts of reality are allowed in your domain.

Jim

Taggers aren't very successful on my layout:  They slipped, spilled their paint bucket, and darn near fell off of the tunnel entrance.

And I thought the West coast had silly laws,,  NY.

Sometimes I wish I could catch a tagger on my house as I would give him a bucket of white paint and have him finish the whole house.

I was uspset that some business down the road had an old SF metal refer in their mud yard and sat there for years. A few years back some A-a= broke in and grafitti all over it. Want to cut the spray finger off these guys.

I actually caught some taggers one day.  My wife and I stopped in Petaluma, CA, to look at an old Northwestern Pacific train depot, locomotive and caboose that were on static display.  It's in an isolated part of town and not maintained very well.  As I was photographing the locomotive, a group of teenagers on bikes arrived with spray paint cans.  I am a law enforcement officer and I was off-duty, not in the town I work in. Just before they began spraying I flashed my badge and rounded them up for the local authorities.  It was pretty brazen on their part!  No respect, appreciation for other people's things.  Whether it's a train, a wall, or anything at all...I have no sympathy for taggers!  Matt

Ed, when I lived in Baltimore I was on my way to my car in the morning and I came up on these 2 teen age girls drawing on a car in the neighborhood with magic markers. I yelled at them to get out of here and was told by them that I should mind my own business. At that point I grabbed one of their book bags they had laying on the ground and threw it over an 6 foot barbed wire fence surrounding a local business and told them to go ahead and call a cop. They didn't but they kept on talking trash the whole time I was there, at that point I called 911 and anonomously reported some vandalism, they left in a hurry, not sure if they ever got their book bag back.

Jerry

Years ago we used to see a lot of "Herby" tags on SP. Chalked, not painted. It seemed relatively discrete and harmless compared to the modern unsightly tagging.

There's a story about "Herby" but I don't remember it.

Same with KILLROY.....small and chalk......

From what I hear it it wasn't for a tagger the Big Boys would known as something else.

As for tagging today. I have see some good, some bad. Sometimes I just wonder how they did such a huge mural on a car, it must have been sitting for a long time.

Some people have the same opinion about Thomas Kinkade prints.

I'm going to assume, Chris, that you know what "social responsibility" means, and that the term could only be applied in a positive fashion to Kinkade's work, which certainly reflected--no matter how one may feel about the artist's style and technique--the best attributes (however fast disappearing) of our American society. 

Looks like the work by the "uninformed voters"

Mixed feelings here. Its private property, but an eyesore if not maintained. Many need the paint badly, and although railroads look better today than they have in a while, the reputation of RR Co.'s visual maintenance precedes them. That's one of the reasons the were chosen as targets to begin with. If your neighborhood businesses, or your houses are maintained like those cars, the tag gripe is redundant. Car info covered up is beyond vandalism, more like sabotage. I recently saw a nice fresh paint job on a loco, pulling a garbage train, but it looked nice. Nice except for the fresh tag on its side. Made me so mad I searched tagger sites for about two hours to tell Bags off. If Ive got the right one, he's an author too. Still need to verify his ID, and see if he takes credit before I call him out, and call an authority. Might be a waste of time but as least Im trying.   

The act itself probably relates far more back to a failure to parent (remember parents?) and the continued perpetration of a segment of the gene pool that has survived for centuries.  Graf and related acts are well documented back into the Roman empire.

However, one should try to avoid defining what is and is not "art".  That's entirely different topic that also tends to be related to failure on this forum more often than not.  But if you do like dogs playing poker on velvet, then by all means hang that over your fireplace,

"Art" is in the eye of the beholder, and, of course some "recognized" art, such as nudes, are found objectionable by some.  Most recognized art has been applied by "artists" to their own canvas, their property.  I would suspect, if someone scrawled in Latin, "Down with the emporer", on the side of the Collosseum about 200 BC, and was caught, he would be defacing the floor of same structure with his blood after being  tossed in with the lions.  It is other people's property on which their efforts are

NOT appreciated.

Bottom line is that you don't deface property that is not yours, plain and simple.

I have to wonder why depicting graffiti on models tends to get such strong negative reactions on this and other forums. The general consensus seems to be as AGHRMatt said, "...we don't want to encourage it, even at the modeling level" or as AmcDave stated, "This really seems like making graffiti 'legit' and acceptable when it's not. I know they are just making a model of a real life item.....but some things do not need to be modeled."

Please understand, this is not personal, I readily agree that in the real world, the criminal act of graffiti is the willful defacing or destruction of someone's property. I'm only using those 2 examples to illustrate what seems to be the underlying angst.

This, then, brings me to wonder why it's OK to model, with a wink and a nod, the streetwalker, or the local house of ill repute such as "Wicked Wanda's," or as portrayed in a recent thread, robbing a bank, not to mention littering. Using the same vein of reasoning aren't we then glorifying other immoral and/or illegal activities?

Now, I'm sure there are those who will have none the above in their modeled reality. Well, that's your right and I have no argument with it. Yet, I think the majority have a problem with having graff on a layout yet think it's cute to depict other somewhat unsavory activities, illegal or otherwise. So, please explain what is the difference?

Danger, Will Robinson!  Rational thought required!!! 

I can understand why so many posters back away from this; willfully defacing privately owned property is against the law, no ifs, ands, or buts - it's ILLEGAL.

So that said; I wouldn't dream of running a scale model train of modern equipment sans some cars with "tags" anymore than I would remove my chalk "Bozo Texino's" "Kilroys" or "Willys" from my steam era cars.

You either model to photographs or to some indeterminate version of your subjective interpretation of reality, I prefer erring on the side of realism in this regard.. your preferences may likely vary. 

Pete

Uh no. Model layouts may be full of those that practice the worlds oldest profession or rob banks. But taggers still haven't migrated to my railroad equipment. I guess the clear coat I use may be impervious to tagger's paint and chalk. And my railroad has an excellent police force with orders to shoot on site. And I didn't mention the machine gun nests at each end of the yard. They are there for show though because some tank cars don't react well to bullets.