I love your work. Can you explain a bit about your methods? Do you use an airbrush? What types of paints do you use? Do you make your own vinyl stickers?
Thanks!
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Mike Downey | blog
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Supporting Kyosho America | Peak Racing | KO Propo America | Fast Pace Racing
I love your work. Can you explain a bit about your methods? Do you use an airbrush? What types of paints do you use? Do you make your own vinyl stickers?
Thanks!
Thanks for the compliment . All of the mini-z paint schemes here you see are all done with rattle can. Tamiya paints is by far the best rattle cans I use. All of the tamiya paints are all TS based. For the fine lines, I use pactra vynal tape. Be care though when you use vynal pin stripe tape for fine lines. They tend to lift after afew coats of spray. Just make sure you go over the edges again with your fingernail. For bigger covered area, I use tamiya masking tape. I've also had great success with blue 3M painters tape. Just make sure when you apply the lite coats that you remember to check the edges of the tape from lifting. All paint schemes are also shot with afew clear coats using Tamiya clear. Mike Valentine's ride ( white/yellow/flat black ) was shot with clear, but I had to mask off the flat black because that's what he requested. It came out pretty sweet.
For fine details like the front mesh, exhaust ports, intake ports, rear mesh, and other detailed areas, I use a fine tip brush. For paints, I use tamiya acrylic model brush paint. I'll do this after I spray the last coat of clear. If you brush in the details with tamiya acrylic paints first; and then spray the clear, the acrylic paint will poss. run or show up lighter with my experience.
I've used an airbrush before, but with the simple designs I come up with, it's not necessary. I would love to airbrush some mini-z bodies someday. You can really get into some serious details with an airbrush. But for now, i'll stick to simple racing lines that use the lines of the body.
I've been into this hobby since 1994 racing 1/10 scale electric on-road and then graduated into 1/10th and 1/8th scale on-road nitro in 2001. Overtime, i've accumulated a ton of decals from previous sponsors and just random decal sheet purchases. Most of the PN Racing decals are all water based; as well as the Yellow hat decals. The yellow hat decals were given to me by the racer who I painted the body for. But, most of the decals I use are from my own personal collection. I try to strategically place the decals as if they were autoscale bodies. Placing the decals on the mini-z body is probably the funnest for me.
I hope this helps. If you have any questions, just hit me up here and i'll try to answer them asap. Thanks again.
Last edited by Roger; 2010.12.12 at 07:26 PM.
Reason: additional 411
Thanks! Getting that fine detail with rattle cans is impressive - especially when you're painting the outside of a body, where you can't just pull up the trim tape and overlap your paint. I assume you let each area dry and then mask it off so you can paint in the trim that was previously masked (unless you're going with stock white)?
What paint do you use for the matte black? I really like that look.
Thanks again,
Mike
__________________
Mike Downey | blog
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Supporting Kyosho America | Peak Racing | KO Propo America | Fast Pace Racing
Thanks! Getting that fine detail with rattle cans is impressive - especially when you're painting the outside of a body, where you can't just pull up the trim tape and overlap your paint. I assume you let each area dry and then mask it off so you can paint in the trim that was previously masked (unless you're going with stock white)?
What paint do you use for the matte black? I really like that look.
Thanks again,
Mike
Hey Mike. Thanks again bro. Yeah, I was having trouble at first because I was so use to painting clear lexan bodies from the inside. My friend Joey Ellis helped me when I first started painting mini-z bodies; Joey use to paint real cars back in the day. Painting now is reversed when going from lexan to mini-z bodies.
That's exactly right Mike. I let each area dry first before I remask the painted area; and then applying the second or third color. For the white pin strips, I apply the pin strip tape first before I apply the first coat. The pin strip tape is removed last after I apply all colors of paint to the body.
The color code the for the matte black paint is tamiya TS-6. ( rattle can )
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