What's your most intricate paint job?

[Hobgoblin]

My partner and I are really enjoying taking out a couple of tamiya's for walks and having a bit of a mess around as we go but my colours tend to be a bit 'boring' greys and whites with only a few brighter parts (normally decals) She loves her greens, brighter the better and adores ivy vines and similar. I'm happy to have a crack at a more stylish shell for her but can see it being very fiddly for my skills! 

Anyway, it made me wonder - what is the most fiddly/intricate/ cool paint job you've ever done on an RC? Doesn't have to be tamiya, polycarb or hard body doesn't matter. Anyone got anything they're proud of?

[topforcein]

this would prob be my most intricate job and it was on my first nitro truck ..my t-maxx all done free hand and with rattle cans.

the main colour is a flip green to blue.

oh and that car it was sitting on was nothing to do with me 

[Ray_ve]

For me it was the Calvin and Hobbs Lamborgini. Took some work but came out great with this artwork.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Painted stripes, masked flames. Took a while! 

Flames are paint mask set from racecraftrc

[mtbkym01]

I’ve been getting a bit more creative and adventurous with my last few efforts, next progression will be to get an airbrush. This was all rattle cans

73921712-247F-4AD7-A840-31079BA6B33A by Kym mtbkym01, on Flickr

3E89DD16-F552-4A0F-B8A6-EAA7E564F513 by Kym mtbkym01, on Flickr

[78Triumph]

Mine was doing the box art M-05 MK1 VW in Kamei livery.  Time consuming with all the masking but it was worth it I think.

Untitled by Joe, on Flickr

[geniusanthony]

3 hours ago, 78Triumph said:

Mine was doing the box art M-05 MK1 VW in Kamei livery.  Time consuming with all the masking but it was worth it I think.

Untitled by Joe, on Flickr

That is a pretty car. I have two kits and I think the body set will go on an M05R that I picked up on a Black Friday sale. Excellent job, question and not to take away from you but, do any interior kits fit or does it have to be custom?

[markbt73]

I used to do some really crazy ones when I raced, just because I wanted to be absolutely sure I was looking at the right car on the track! I don't do much fiddly stuff any more, but this Willys coupe from a couple years ago turned out pretty well, I think. Parma body, Parma Faskolor paint, liquid mask, airbrush.

Stampede chassis is in pieces now, body is in a storage box somewhere...

[speedy_w_beans]

It's a toss-up between the R91CP I did a few years ago and the MAN TGS I'm currently working on.

The masking on the R91CP shell took some time to get smooth lines, and I was extra careful with the rear wing to not overlap the red and blue colors so the rear view is still accurate.

The MAN is still a work in progress.  I used OCD's poster putty method for masking the engine, turbo, transmission, etc.  I also cut vinyl panels for the lower deck, and cut chrome vinyl for the front grill.  There are still several details to complete.

[Grastens]

It took me several unrelated decal sheets and plenty of masking, but it was also my best work:

Now departed - I might regret that a bit...

I have at least one grander design coming up, which is the case when electing to paint stripes instead of using decals. That might just be my opinion on ABS shells in comparison to polycarbonate types, though!

[moffman]

This is a good thread I could look all day long at all the different creations........let's have more👍

[moffman]

This is a good thread I could look all day long at all the different creations........let's have more👍 this was my most intricate in the fact that I used a spray gun I got a almost glass finish and the very hot day made it very hard to put on because it was almost instantly drying as it was going on and the decals were all individual including the pinstripe around the main side decal, 

[S-PCS]

You know, I always thought I had some sort of obsessive compulsive boxart disorder that made me paint kits to boxart specs every single time. I'm past that now - I realize that it was never OCBD, just a simple case of common Total Lack Of Creativity, Skills And Talent (TLOCSAT). 

But since when has that ever stopped anyone from anything? I figure the cure for TLOCSAT is pretty much the same as for OCBD - just paint lots of stuff anyway and see what happens. 

Thankfully, even Tamiya has produced some ugly ducklings that no-one wants - like the DT-02 Nissan Titan. Released on an obsolete platform, with a body nearly completely unknown outside of the US, modeled after a competition truck from a racing series that went bankrupt before the model was released, that was succeeded by a series ironically named the Traxxas TORC series (seriously, and that's 1:1 racing). And if you think that's not bad enough, just check out the MSRP of only $257. 

Needless to say, they're practically given away these days, at least in Europe. So I bought an unreasonable number of NIB Nissan Titans and started to happily paint away. After all, there's nothing like repetition to hone your skills. (Hey, what are you going to do, with no artistic talent whatsoever? Hard work is your only option). 

Last weekend, just in time for this thread, I finally produced a Titan body that is at least somewhat presentable. (I managed to do that once before, but that other one was claimed by my wife. Frog paint scheme, it was the Pink that did it).

You might recognize this particular paint scheme from somewhere, so yes, still some work ahead of me in the creativity department, but at least my painting skills are improving. 

Too bad the pic somewhat diminishes the visual impact of Tamiya's Fluorescent Orange. It's really shockingly Orange in real life. 

[Guest]

Mine is probally this 'A' team inspired Lowdown. I usually keep things simple, but this was worth it. 

 

[78Triumph]

21 hours ago, geniusanthony said:

That is a pretty car. I have two kits and I think the body set will go on an M05R that I picked up on a Black Friday sale. Excellent job, question and not to take away from you but, do any interior kits fit or does it have to be custom?

Mine came with a driver figure that I mounted on a just a flat black piece of styrene that runs across the body.  I have the tamiya rally cockpit in my XV-01 but it's way too big to fit in this the size body.

 

[Tizer]

This one was quite some work to paint :)

[JennyMo]

Certainly the most tricky paint job I've found is trying to mask the Beetle shell for a Sand Scorcher box-art (or similar) two-tone scheme - I tried this initially during my initial Fro-Sco build, and again for the box-art paint on the STUMPscorcher - and trying to get clean lines with masking tape is chore (although I understand the dedicated Tamiya tape is much better for this that typical DIY store stuff)...

This is why I've embraced the rusty weathered look on my subsequent builds - far easier to hide any blemishes that way!

The most intricate example is probably Tam'Mater:

 

...using lots of different coloured spray cans - red-oxide, blue, green, white, yellow and black - plus plenty of detail acrylics with a brush too (including the driver - Larry Willy), and especially tricky was the individual Letraset lettering in the doors!

Jenny x

[Jason1145]

This was one of mine

[Yalson]

I used to brush paint all the details on my shells and then spray the base colours over them, so it all used to come down to a steady hand rather than technical tape application. I'm not saying it's easier or harder, it's just a different skill. None of my RC shells were hugely intricate in that regard, as most of the sponsor detail was down to decals rather than paint.

For the really intricate stuff I would have directed you to the Lexan 1/32 slot car shells I used to paint. These were really fiddly and access was frequently exceptionally difficult due to the awkward angles and body creases. I got pretty good at it, though, and once won the Sports concours section at the UK National Chamionships. Unfortunately I'd painted it for a friend at the club, so that one wasn't mine and I don't have a picture. I wasn't even there when it won.

This shell isn't all that, to be fair, especially with all the road rash from being raced. But I was quite pleased with the orange/white/black interpretation of the US flag on the bonnet.

The trickiest RC shell I ever did was a Scumacher Cougar which I did for a mate and got paid £20 for, if I remember correctly. He had a bizarrely specific paintjob in mind and explained it to me in tremendous detail. I think it was white on top and the lower half was black, but the graduation between the two was that the black broke up into gradually smaller and smaller pieces. But the pieces were all surrounded by a flourescent orange outline. I seem to recall there was a red section in there somewhere, too, but I can't honestly remember where. Took me ages to do by hand and I should have charged him more, but he was chuffed with it, so happy days. Despite the finnicky brief it was actually very handsome. Annoyingly I think I had a picture of that one from back in the days when physical pictures were a thing, but I have no idea where it is now.

[Juggular]

Can't say intricate, but this took some time.  

[yogi-bear]

this is not intricate, but I was happy with this because it was one of the first times I used a gloss lacquer over the top, and the condition I got it it meant it was a challenge getting it clean enough to paint.

after

before

[Mad Ax]

On 2/25/2019 at 7:14 PM, S-PCS said:

Needless to say, they're practically given away these days, at least in Europe. So I bought an unreasonable number of NIB Nissan Titans and started to happily paint away.

I remember really wanting one of these but as they were consistently priced £20-£30 higher than the other DT-02 trucks I never got around to getting one.

Anyway, on topic - painting is one of those jobs that I love to hate.  I've had a trimmed Desert Fielder body ready to paint for about 3 years but I haven't plucked up the courage to mask it yet.  I still haven't fully decided on a paint job.  Every time I think I've make a decision, I just change my mind.  So often I'm disappointed in my multi-tone paint jobs, either the colours fail to work together or the lines I was hoping to achieve just don't fit with the body.  As much as I dislike painting in boxart (I hate that my car might look exactly like someone else's), Tamiya's designers knew all about balancing and matching colours and getting lines to work, etc.  Graphic design is more than just knowing how to use CorelDRAW - it's a science as much as an art and the professionals employ tricks that make the rest of us look like kids playing with crayons.

It also shows where Tamiya has cut some corners with their recent 'colour edition' cars - sometimes the updated colours just don't work together properly.

My most hated body was my Mercedes E190.  It doesn't come with indicator / brake light decals, so they have to be painted with translucent colour.  That means the light lenses need to be masked and painted after the solid colours have gone on.  Except the lenses are hidden right up in the corner of the body and they're not smooth, so masking tape never wants to seal properly, and while you can apply liquid mask, it's hard to get a sharp blade in there to trim it.  In the end I gave up and went for an FBI look with black everything (I even stripped and blacked the chrome parts).  Actually the car was being made for a long-derailed movie project, and it was supposed to be driven by a mysterious black ops assassin / spy character, so all black sort of made sense.

With all that in mind, I haven't done too many technical paint jobs.  I actively avoid them where possible.  Probably the best body design I've done is on my Blitzer Storm, which is a Blitzer Beetle with a HPI Firestorm body:

The photos don't do the Tamiya flouro orange justice - it really bangs in the sun.  But while it looks really intricate, the jagged lines between the colours were made by ripping up pieces of masking tape and using the natural rip.  I've used it since on a few other cars but the first one came out the best.

My Hotrod Hearse is my only attempt at airbrushing a lexan body.  I masked up the skull motif and the spots, then misted the entire body with a light coat of metalflake from a non-Tamiya can (maybe Fastrax or Pactra?) before shooting it all with black.  I think then I must have removed the spot masks and added something else to get the fading effect in the spots, I can't remember that far back.  Then I went over with silver and fluro green.  The wheels also got a basecoat of fluro green and a light coat of silver metalflake - light enough that the deep parts of the rim seem to glow green.  Unfortunately time hasn't been kind and the wheels have shed a lot of their paint (I'm always finding little arcs of fluro green with silver flake on my workshop floor).

 

[Pata76]

Here are my small collection 

[S-PCS]

On 2/25/2019 at 9:39 AM, Grastens said:

 

One day, I will shamelessly duplicate that color combo, just because of it's awesomeness. 

[NWarty]

55 minutes ago, S-PCS said:

One day, I will shamelessly duplicate that color combo, just because of it's awesomeness. 

x2