TOPIC:

I've been reading a lot of books on airbrushing & custom painting, most recently "How to Custom Paint Your Motorcycle" (JoAnn Bortles, Motorbooks, ISBN 0-7603-2033-0), and although that one might have been information overload for me (think firehose aimed at teacup) it did get me thinking - although I'm never going to be any sort of an artist, I can get better at the technical aspects of painting. Whenever I've pushed myself to improve or try new techniques, I've been pleased with the results - and there haven't been _that_ many failures along the way.

With that in mind - time to start experimenting. First subject, a lexan Pajero Rallysport shell. Thanks to being unloved _and_ 1cm over Royal Mail's "Small Parcel" size, it's just not worth putting it on eBay. That & a bunch of part-used Tamiya PS sprays & some liquid mask that I never really got on with before add up to experimenting with a blue/black fade - and flames I've always cut lexan shells out before painting in the past, this time I'm going to leave all the extra forming on until afterwards, so I get to answer that question (at least for myself) too.




Pajero shell has protective film on the outside, so I could drawn on that ... tape is on the outside at this point, so I can see the limits of the area I want to be covered by flames...




Window masks on (maybe prematurely), taped limits of area I want to use the liquid mask on - then two layers of the liquid mask itself..




Liquid mask fully dried & cut out on inside with with scalpel (& 10A blade), note lack of artistic talent ...



I still have some prep to do (more masking) then it'll be on to spraying the flames. Traditional hot rod flames fade to from red to yellow, i don't have any tamiya PS yellow to hand so will try something different - not quite sure just what yet ...

Made some quite rapid progress on this yesterday ... head & neck are aching & feeling pretty sick after breathing in too many fumes (getting too close on the red, and swirly wind patterns on the black), I'm thinking I do enough painting that I should look into getting a facemask with a forced fresh air supply ...

Moving on, what I'd planed for the flames was a metallic red/orange fade, but it didn't quite work like that ...

Masking the rest of the body - blue 3M tape seems a bit extravagant, but I've learned that cheap and/or inadequate masking gives a crap result ...




Orange PS going on ..




... and the red ...




... backed with silver.




With the blue tape gone & the rest of the liquid mask gone you can see the fade is a bit too subtle, and the colour isn't metallic at all. It's not horrible, but I can see why flames are traditionally red to yellow - and that aerosols put down a bit too much colour over too wide an area for a fade effect on this sort of scale - and if you try to reduce the pressure, you get splatter ... If I do it again, it'd really need to be airbrushed - and therefore need a different paint system.




Blue PS on - put on the roof & trailing edge of the bonnet (hood) as fine as I could ...




Two coats of PS black to finish - I think the fade worked reasonable well this time. Remember that the protective film is still on the outside of the shell at this point ...






... to be continued ...

The result sounds good. And the stylized flames aren't so ugly.

Cut the body out (quite easy as it's very thin & flimsy on most of the undercuts), detail decals stuck on, all holes drilled, remaining masking & outer film peeled, mirrors & spare wheel fitted ... I think it's come out quite well for an experiment Still too tall to qaulity as a "small parcel" but I'm tempted to put in up for sale now- I must have added some value

Main body colour depends a lot on light level - first two are dim daylight, second two with flash:

It's pretty nice

Never seen a Pajero with flames before!
Or are they a bunch of red rabbits

Old thread but it feels like the right place to put this ...

This is a 1:18 diecast Fiat 500, bought in silver & chemically stripped, primed, then airbrushed with the idea of matching my Dad's "Fresh Mint" 1:1 version in time for Sunday .... it's been raining for the last 4 days so that now seems very unlikely, but I'm giving myself the best chance I can by converting the bathroom into a spray booth & hoping to get the colour (ratio of 2ml XF-2 White to 1 drop X-15 Light Green to 3 drops X-14 Sky Blue + 2ml X-20A Thinner) & possibly the Clear on today:

Pretty nice painting room.

Was in a bit of a rush to finish this for Father's day earlier in the month & only just managed to get a photo. As you can see his new toy is the newer version, but I did the best I could ... colour match is a lot better than the photos suggest

Love it!