Caveat: I'm not active in this hobby. (No money, no room, etc.) Still I intend to return some day.

I've been idly wondering what causes modeling stuff to look plastic. To visually reek of plastic-ness.

We've all seen it. Is it how things are colored? Um, I'm not very familiar with manufacturing techniques. Say, cheap rolling stock, are these manufactured and then painted before shipping out to stores, or are they dyed plastic?

Or is it the colors are just off? I remember being about 10 and reading something about real-world accurate colors often appearing too bright on HO scale equipment. But I've no clue if that's true or not.

My motivation to examine causes is that I have a particular notion of what I'd like to do when I get back to this hobby.

I'd like to model that fantasy of "all things fresh." No weathering, no graffiti, no weeds in the ballast, no weathering on the road surfaces, no bent up stright lights. Everything adhering to the fantasy of "what if real life was factory fresh?"

And I'm sure that could easily devolve into everything looking like a plastic toy. I want to avoid that.

Thoughts? Commentary? Let's see what kind of discussion we can have here.