I apologize in advance for dredging up this thread from the dead, but I am a man of my word, and therefore I will finally produce the images I promised (with absolutely no digital "trickery"). I could spend all day making excuses as to why I did not upload them sooner, but nobody cares about that, so on to the reason I am posting. The photographs below illustrate the aforementioned production issues that I brought up on two different models of this locomotive. I have since forgotten which model is which, but that should not make as much of a difference, as there are errors on both (along with my model, not pictured):
Photograph 1:
Image one was likely taken to try and capture the printing effect on the veterans logo on both sides of the locomotive. I am no photographer, so this is the best I could get. The texture will hopefully be visible to those of you familiar with Kato's printing methods (if this example indeed shares its production method with other releases).
Photograph 2:
Image two highlights a few of the decoration errors that I have made reference to previously in this thread. Clearly visible in this photograph (hopefully) appears to be a sort of paint/ink bleed from the blue stripe into the white stripe. This is seen in the form of a grayish-blue dot (to the right of veterans logo, within the white band), a blue streak directly below the right side of the veterans logo, and a blue dot inside the "door" to the left of the veterans logo. Also of note is the color of the stars within the blue band, which appear to be a blueish-white rather than plain white, but that may just be a limitation of the printing process.
Photograph 3:
Image three shows probably the most prominent error on any of the units I have seen, which is a series of red and blue streaks across the white band (located below the road number "42"). This error makes the others seem almost able to be overlooked.
Photograph 4:
Image four shows another example of the "bleed" effect along the lower portion of the white band below the veterans logo. I do not feel the need to point out each individual blemish in this case, as there are enough to be obvious.
Photograph 5:
Image five shows even more of the bleeding effect present on these locomotives, with much of it being centered around the door and below the veterans logo. Perhaps these areas are prone to error due to specific details or artifacts of the printing process?
Photograph 6:
Image six is of the rear quarter of one of the locomotives. There appears to be more blue bleed to the left of the rear door. Also of interest is the appearance of what looks to be incomplete printing along the handrail indentations along the sides of the doors. This I did not notice until reviewing these photographs again, but I am not going to complain about it due to the fact that I could not visibly see it in person, unlike the blue bleed (then again, I am usually to close for comfort with these models most of the time, so I doubt many others have picked up on any of these errors anyway).
Photograph 7:
Image seven displays more of the blue bleed color in the usual places. Also of interest is what appears to be a darker grey dot to the left of the veterans logo, but within the main silver body color of the locomotive rather than within the confines of the stripes, like many of the other errors previously identified. The flag also looks a little suspect from this angle, but that could be due to a multitude of personal problems, so it will be ignored.
Photograph 8:
Image eight again identifies more evidence of blue ink bleed. A notable example of this is located within the confines of the side door, where the bleed is very visible, and is visible from approximately three feet away, which is cause for internal alarm.
Photograph 9:
Image nine is pretty much the same photograph as image eight, but from a slightly different position. I am including solely because I already took the photograph and copied the link.
I hope these measly nine photographs can satiate this forums desire for photographic evidence of my claims. I am also positive that a true modeler would be able to just fix these slight discrepancies and go on with their lives. I for one will just run it at high speeds and forget I even saw the defects. Initially, I was just curious to find if anyone else had noticed similar problems. Writing this and looking over the photographs makes me curious as to what other decoration discrepancies are present amongst the members of my fleet. Again, not complaining, just simply curious. If you managed to make it to the end of this post, thank you, and I hope it at was at least worth your time.
