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mongoose1983

Best optional color for a Hornet.

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For me personally it would be either tamiya black or red. Not a fan of blue or yellow on it.

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Probably your are not a fan of the dark blue due the bad conditions of your body. The absence of the yellow stripes makes the body anonymous. If you look the 11th picture you can see dark blue and yellow stripes. The stripes pops up, they are bright. In the first picture with black they are brighter than on the dark blue. In the 7th picture the stripes disappears over the yellow body.

The 2nd Horned is in copper. I must admit that it's no bad because the copper color is dark enough to make a contrast with white and yellow. Yet don't like the contrast with red but there's something worse than this.

The power of colors is impressive. Have a look at 9th and 12th pictures and compare them. Both cars are in a very similar position but if you compare them the red one seems sleeker than the white/light blue one. Why? Because the horizontal stripes makes the body "longer" than the #12 car. The semi vertical light blue bands cut the body in tree sections, front end, rear end and a middle part. The part in the middle is white, it's brighter, so seems bigger. The colored front and rear end are less bright so seem smaller. The result is that the roof seems higher and the bonnet and rear end shorter and lower.

Light colors make objects bigger for a simple physics reason. Bright light objects reflect more light frequencies, white reflects all light frequencies. Reflecting all received light a white object seems bigger than a matt black object that reflects nothing. For this reason it is said that black clothes make look slimmer. In fact you'll never see a fat woman dressed in white.

Max

Well, mine is dark blue and I'm not much a fan of it...

hornet1984_zpsefe5a122.jpg

Yep, a device like that one would be such a great help to decide what color would be best!

I was interested in what you had to say, Max. I did not know any theory on how a lighter color would make an object look bigger.

Now, gun metal might be a good choice, I just haven't seen a Hornet in such color.

Anyway, here's a bunch of non-boxart ones. The one in copper color sure looks good!

COLOR_zps90e807d5.jpg<p>

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Probably your are not a fan of the dark blue due the bad conditions of your body. The absence of the yellow stripes makes the body anonymous [...]


Yes, the body is bruised and battered. That's why I keep thinking in getting another one. I already got the decals. Still, the dark blue doesn't do for me!


[...] The power of colors is impressive [...]

Max


Do you know I'm really learning a LOT with this, Max. I don't think I cared much about the theory of colors, until now. I was basically trying to find different colors that would look good on a Hornet, but this has left me thinking...

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I think the Hornet is one of those cars that have few color choice.

For example I broke my head year ago about the Boomerang, but there are only tree option for the Boomerang in my opinion: white, yellow and silver. All other colors don't match well with the decals.

I'm thinking about the Super Shot/Super Hot Shot: silver, light silver or chrome?

Max

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The copper looks nice. I have colour issues too and its made worse by the fact that I hate to do box art, esp stickers (not just the Hornet ones - ALL stickers!!!) so whatever colour / s I use have to look good on their own. I mostly get it wrong!!!

Rich

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there are only tree option for the Boomerang in my opinion: white, yellow and silver. All other colors don't match well with the decals.

Max

I don't know, I'm pretty happy with my boomer

IMG_1722.jpg

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Nice, thats cardesigners hornet right?

I was lucky to see this in person. It looks even better in the flesh. I always thought a version similar to the bigwig might be cool. Cardesigner added some nice touches with the red nuts to make the weels pop a little more than stock.

James.

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I don't agree. You loose the red outlines and the orange in the stripes. The stripes seem smaller and don't pop up, the metallic kills the shape of the car.

Max

Totally agree with you - I wouldn't go for metallic. That notwithstanding, red is still my favourite of the options. You might lose the outlines, but for me, the overall colour scheme more than makes up for it. Obviously there are going to be lots of different perspectives which is a lot of the fun - and it's always cool seeing the things that appeal to others ... Jun Watanabe for instance.

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This was one of my favorites:img30876_05092010144046_1.jpg

Care of TC member, JWestern

Red and Black for a Hornet... not my cup 'a tea.

Anyway, here's (again) the sideview of cardesigner's Hornet. So far it's one of the most beautiful Hornets I've seen in TC:

colorhornet.jpg

Also, just today TCer elfurioso0815 has uploaded this one. I'm not sure what's the color, but man, it really looks GOOD!

hornetbuggy_zpsed713843.jpg

So far these two and copper are the colors that are captivating my interest for a future project. :rolleyes::)

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Mongoose, this Hornet in metallic light blue is not so bad but the problem is to match the decal colors.

For example, there is red in the decals (the numbers and the writing on the rear wing).

Red absolutely doesn't mix with green and blue, especially with light blue.

Then the writing and the numbers are white inside. This make a light color of the body (like white for example) a complex choice. If you make the body white you loose the numbers and the writing and the stripes are not emphasized.

Why not choose another color like yellow, orange or red? Because the stripes are yellow and orange and if you use these two colors you will loose the stripes.

Red will work good with the stripes but you will loose the red outline of the numbers and the writing.

Yellow, Orange and Red are warm colors, so you must mix them with totally different colors possibly cold colors.

Green is a warm color but mixes very well with yellow stripes but bad with red. Blue is cold and mixes very well also with yellow and orange but really bad with red. For this reason I suggested dark blue instead of light blue. Have a close look to the side number in the light metallic blue Hornet. Focus the red outlines of the number and the light blue. You will see a bad contrast with the colors. Where finishes the red, where starts the light blue? The metallic makes this bad contrast worse adding another visual problem to this bad contrast. One of the most important of the color rules is "never write in red over blue or green and vice versa".

The remaining color are not too much. Dark blue reduces the contrast (in front of light blue) with red and emphasizes the yellow stripes and the white numbers. Black is the best choice because emphasizes the yellow stripes and the white numbers and has a good contrast with red. Dark green is the last choice because emphasizes well the yellow stripes but not so well the white numbers and has a really bad contrast with red. If you wanna use the green it must be darker as possible, backed with black if possible. Another good choice is the Gun Metal because is a cold color but is neutral and doesn't give problems with the red or the yellow. Is dark enough to emphasizes the yellow stripes and the white numbers and mix well with the red.

Other colors like purple, light blue, gold or other are simply ugly or gives problems of contrast.

At last a light color or a metallic color (the worst mix is light and metallic all together) is generally a bad choice on the Hornet because Hornet body shape is not the best in the world of design. A light and/or metallic color emphasizes the shapes and makes the object seem bigger. So a dark non metallic color helps to hide the bad shapes and proportions of the Hornet body.

Silver is a bad choice imho. It is neutral like Gun Metal but is too light for yellow and white, mix well with red outlined writings but not with full white writings. At the end is light and metallic and doesn't mix with Hornet shape.

These are only my tastes and my humble opinions but would like to say that I'm a professional graphic advertiser.

So I suggest again:

1 Black

2 Gun Metal backed with black

3 Dark blue backed with black

4 Dark Green backed with black

5 Metallic Dark Green backed with black

^^THIS!

I'm also a designer and this is the first time I can recall someone busting out color theory selection.

Max, that was just dead on.

IMHO the only other color I'd consider is black metallic, if you're gonna stay with the original decals.

I think the fox blue is a good choice, as well with the stock decals.

I'm thinking of laying out some different decals and have them printed up. I agree with Max with the body being a weak design, and the decals don't help it any, they just don't work well together.

I think that with the right lines in the decals, and well thought out paint and color scheme the body has the potential to look much better.

I'm normally a fan of the Tamiya box art, but in the case of the hornet, I think there is room for improvement.

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This was one of my favorites:img30876_05092010144046_1.jpgCare of TC member, JWestern

I think this could work if the decals were tweaked. Even if the stripes where just a solid silver outlined in black or gunmetal outlined in white, the two different shades of red, with the yellow and orange don't do it for me.

GREAT job on the build and the paint. Looks like a sweet little hornet.

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You definitely sticking with the Hornet body? I never really liked it over the Grasshopper. Did you know Kamtec do a Rough Rider lexan shell that needs very little work to fit the Hornet chassis?

7E9B6CA3-DB90-4924-A233-3AC550E4E6D6-10847-00000F3EDA063C96.jpg

Ive got to say that orange and black painted Hornet is one of the best I've seen.

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I wonder why there are so many (new built or almost new built) Hornets missing their front spot lights. I like the metallic blue one, but the spot lights are one of the Hornet's characteristic traits that shouldn't be left out. Without them, the front is looking quite bland.

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Hi BadWagon,

I simply didn't think to the metallic black because I didn't know metallic black exists... ;-)

Also agree with you about the red/Gun Metal Hornet.

Cheers

Max

^^THIS!

I'm also a designer and this is the first time I can recall someone busting out color theory selection.

Max, that was just dead on.

IMHO the only other color I'd consider is black metallic, if you're gonna stay with the original decals.

I think the fox blue is a good choice, as well with the stock decals.

I'm thinking of laying out some different decals and have them printed up. I agree with Max with the body being a weak design, and the decals don't help it any, they just don't work well together.

I think that with the right lines in the decals, and well thought out paint and color scheme the body has the potential to look much better.

I'm normally a fan of the Tamiya box art, but in the case of the hornet, I think there is room for improvement.

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I simply didn't think to the metallic black because I didn't know metallic black exists... ;-)

Many auto makers list metallic or mica black in their colour ranges. I've used them before on real car spray jobs. They certainly look very black until you get them in the light and the metallic base sparkles.

Technically speaking there is no such thing as a true black paint (solid or metallic). The pigment is always a very dark shade of a colour.

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I agree with Max with the body being a weak design, and the decals don't help it any, they just don't work well together.

I think that with the right lines in the decals, and well thought out paint and color scheme the body has the potential to look much better.

I'm normally a fan of the Tamiya box art, but in the case of the hornet, I think there is room for improvement.

Totally agree with this.

The lines of the hornet body are not defined enough, the rear arches seem week and the roof too flat for my taste.

Personally I would go for the grasshopper body. Much more interesting and cleaner lines, and of course hard plastic rather than lexan. this opens up a lot of different paint options. PS paints are limited in the effects you can reach, whereas you have a full range of matt's metalics, deep colours etc for a hard body.

As an aside, the metallic blue Hornet works for me. Not sure why... technically it shouldn't. Maybe it's the wheels... those grippers seem to add a gravity to it that the spikes don't.

This is an enjoyable thread. i am learning a lot from you design chaps. Keep it coming.

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Considering that the original Hornet was Tamiya's best selling RC (1 million units sold apparently), and the re-release has now also been in production for 8 years whilst other buggies have come & gone, I don't think there are many people out there who think it has a "weak design".....

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[...]This is an enjoyable thread. i am learning a lot from you design chaps. Keep it coming.

I can say the same. This has helped me learn a lot about colors and theories. :)

Thank you all for your replies. Very interesting!

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