Stevenson Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE

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Stevenson Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE

Materials:
Kyosho Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE unpainted autoscale
Krylon Fusion Gloss Black
Krylon Fusion Gloss Jungle Green
Molotow Liquid Chrome 2mm pen
Future Floor Polish
Pattos Camaro GT3 Stevenson No. 75 2013 (custom)

I had been planning this one for a long time, ever since the Camaro was released really. As soon as I saw the pictures, I jumped to Pattos and dove into the decal offerings to see what inspired me. I happened across the collection of Stevenson liveries and really dig the vintage racing vibe and immediately began planning out some builds. First, I got the regular set to see just how well the scaled down livery would wrap a not to precise scale Autoscale. Turns out, not the best fit. I have one car decked out with the stock decal set minus the wrap over the B pillar and truck as the proportions just don't match up to the Autoscale and used that car as my track test mule to see how well it handled as well. I don't want to further invest in a bunch of work on a car I would never drive (EK9 mistake).
I thought about it more and decided I would just apply and morph the graphic to the body myself. I had done this with the Godzilla Advan cars to some success and while ambitious, it was the only way I was going to get this done. Now, the stock livery color schemes are well, not as dynamic as I would prefer and again too it upon myself to alter the color scheme for this car in particular. I've done a couple black/jungle green combos and those look fantastic so choose to adapt this to the Stevenson livery. I mocked up by inversing the stock livery and modified color selections of various things to align with the color pattern I had in mind. Of course, Patto was more than accommodating in picking up the changes I wanted and 4+ weeks later it arrived at my door step (again, pandemic shipping delays). It was a bit tricky to get the colors matched to a Krylon paint color but Patto did a fantastic job!
Naturally, the pandemic put a kink in the schedule as I placed my order for the Camaro white bodies when they were listed in JPN and disappointed to learn shipping was restricted to just sea vs. air. I placed my order early to mid December and they arrived mid March. What had been planed as a quick project schedule turned into a game of patience. In fact, by the time it all the materials arrived I had actually forgotten all my initial planning steps and had not taken any notes. By this time Easter is approaching and decided to overlap this project with a bit of spring break time off.
Thanks to not taking notes, I made some order of operations mistakes in the begining. Not sure why, but the color flip at the rear really thru me for a loop on sequence and planning, just didn't click at first.

I traced out the main graphics on mask tape and carefully wrapped it on the body and sketched some adaptations needed to conform to the Mini-Z morphed scale. This was mostly found in the feathers that are behind the rear wheel and wrap up onto the trunk.

Repositioning the tape eventually lead to some paint bleed but overall OK. The real tricky bit was hand cutting out the stencil from the tracing overlay and getting the line thickness even.


I made some mistakes in this as it's not really evident where I had already traced with the knife and took a lot of concentration to remember where I had already traveled with the knife.


Once all this was done, just needed to cut out the rest of the decals, apply and clear coat which went rather painlessly. Now that I have one down, I'm confident that additional copies can be improved upon should I try again. I'm certain I will at some point but right now, just want to enjoy the piece of work.