Paint coverage

[Wetman 417]

Probably been done on here a million times but how many tamiya 150ml cans will it take to cover a Jimny properly? plan is to do red body with silver arches and bumpers so PS-12 Silver and PS-2 red. And would you back them with a white or something?

[ChrisRx718 4470]

Jimny body is nice and small so 2 cans will do it.

What I would say, however, is that PS-2 red is one of the colours from Tamiya which is not very opaque. I recently painted my Dads' Alfa 156 in PS-2 red and backed it with 2 coats of PS-1 white just to stop it looking transparent. PS-6 yellow is just as annoying in this respect.

Tamiya cans are only 100ml. Great value, eh?! 

Have you considered metallic red instead of PS-2? 

It may be OK if you do the PS-2 first, then the silver PS-12 arches will act as a backing. PS-12 is a good opaque colour too.

[Wetman 417]

Cheers best order 2 red then.

 

 

[Mad Ax 9329]

You might get away with one can (recently I've done several all-white bodies with just one can) but I find it's best to have two, last thing you want is to have to put a paint job on hold because you've run out.

I would also back PS-2 red with PS-12 silver.  Silver is a brilliant opaque backing colour, and as you're adding silver details anyway you can just peel off your masks once the red is dry and shoot the silver straight on.  You could also back with PS-13 gold, which adds a little bit of warmth to the red, but since you're adding a cold silver to the body you'll probably prefer the coolness that the silver adds.

Personally I always finish by adding a quick coat of PS-5 black once the rest of the colours are done.  If everything is properly backed with an opaque silver or gold then the black won't make any difference to the colour from outside, but it makes interior look nicer when glimpsed through the window.  Personal choice tho, and black has been hard to find recently.

[Wetman 417]

Cheers Mad Ax. Looks like a lot of colours are hard to find lately. What is the best brush paint to use for the grill and stuff? was looking for a black PC5 but seems to be rarer than hens teeth now

[Nicadraus 6201]

It is always better to lay white paint under any bright color. 

Example: 

If painting Bright color (Blue, red, yellow, green, orange, etc) on a hard shell, paint two to three coats of white first before coating with the base color.

If painting on polycarbonate/lexan, paint with the base color first (4-5 coats) and seal with white (or silver if white isn't available). 

White will bring out the natural color that is supposed to be. So get a can of red and a can of white (or silver).

[Mad Ax 9329]

I'm planning on painting a red shell this weekend.  While I've got the paints out I'll do a test-run on some scrap lexan to see how the red looks with white, silver and gold backing.  I expect the results will be very subtle and might not even show in a photo (I'll even shoot in Vivid and Natural colour modes to see if the enhanced colour correction of Vivid picks up more of a difference), but I'm always happy to try something like this in the name of experimentation  

(sets reminder to test-print red paint)

On that note, I've never found a suitable backing colour for PS-6 Yellow that doesn't make it look sickly and weak.  I've hated every yellow shell I painted until I switched to PS-19 Camel Yellow.

 

[Mad Ax 9329]

14 hours ago, Wetman said:

Cheers Mad Ax. Looks like a lot of colours are hard to find lately. What is the best brush paint to use for the grill and stuff? was looking for a black PC5 but seems to be rarer than hens teeth now

Personally I would mask and spray, I've never had much joy with brush-painting.  I have a feeling most skilled builders would recommend using liquid mask but I have to confess I've never had much joy with that either.

You can make a mask by layering up a good quality masking tape on the outside of the body, drawing around it with a marker (use the indents in the body if applicable to assist), then peel it off, cut around the lines (sticking it on the backing film from an old decal sheet helps to stop it sticking to itself) then paste it on from the inside.  Looking at the Jimny body, I'd probably do a combination of that and additional spot-masking where required, but others may have other ideas  

[Nicadraus 6201]

Here's a shell I painted in yellow last year using poly-urethane automotive paint. Yellow backed with white.

No backing

White backing

Result

Here's blue (PS-30) backed with silver (PS-41)

Result

 

[Mad Ax 9329]

@Nicadraus that yellow is superb.  What is the automotive paint and does it stand up well to use?

There's a thread over in Build Tips about using automotive paints on polycarb, I will tag you there in case you have any useful insights