A couple of my recent efforts

[slotcarrod]

Dude! You do some sweet work! Lovin the Cortina and the 12l the most but all your stuff looks great!

[DerbyDan]

Great job on the bodies. Im new to the site but not to the hobby. I air brush too but I use pactra paints what kind of paint are you using.i wanna try something different.

Thanks guys for the kind comments.....

@ BIGHUNGRY; I use a variety of paints, I tend to buy whats available at the time rather than having a particular preference. As I said previously, the airbrush only tends to get used for the detailed fading so some of the tins of favourite colours (black, Flourescent Blue/Orange/Yellow etc) I've had for ages - they are Custom Color which I believe is still distributed by Horizon Hobbies in the UK, I also have a selection of waterbased colours that I brought for the Masami shell those are 'Createx' brand & work well but I need to turn up the pressure on the compressor to propel the paint.

I still use the aerosols for the large areas - which is definately not the most cost effective way of painting but my airbrush nozzle doesn't allow for a wide spray angle (its a basic single action syphon type) I try to use the Custom Color aerosols where I can as they seem to be the most consistant & spray with a very fine mist which reduces the risk of paint bleed under the masks. I also use Tamiya PS & the Fastrax paints from CML but these tend to have a wetter spray. I little money saving tip is to use either the white ABS plastic primer or satin black from the motor factors (Halfords etc) for those respective colours - these cover well but still flex with the Lexan shells. With aerosols I always warm them up 1st by placing them in a bowl of boiling water - this seems to liven up the propellant & gurantee a good paint flow - even ressurrecting old pre-used tins

@ integra22t - the 'top' that is featured in many of the shots is actually one of two sheets of laminated glass that has a patterned (Metal mesh) interlayer to give it that 'look' - they were samples for a glazed wall that we installed in the foyer of a big office building in central London.

[integra22t]

it looks great can you take a better shot of it .. never seen that before

[DerbyDan]

it looks great can you take a better shot of it .. never seen that before

Here you go;



Its basically a metal mesh that is normally used as 'lath' material for plaster to bond to but its been set withing the interlayer between the glass sheets making a laminated panel - the back face is painted. This particular sample & method was rejected as you can see the 'lines' that occur in the mesh from the manufacturing process... a different sample with a printed pattern was used instead.

Anyway here's a Parma Clodbuster shell that i've recently sprayed to save the original 'bowtie' shell on my runner Clod.

[DerbyDan]

Clodbuster shell now mounted;

[vwjuice]

That clod shell looks pretty sweet. I like the colors.

[DerbyDan]

I recently completed this Box Art Losi JRX2 shell, the number on the side was scaled off a profile image of the original & traced back onto the masking tape - so painted on

[scootmike]

Sharp looking buggy!

[flustorm99]

Great looking paint jobs. It wouldbe great to see the process of masking and layering etc... So my dumb brain see how its actually done...

[DerbyDan]

I was really pleased with how this paint job came out, its vary rare for a finished paint job not to have some little niggle or imperfection, but this shell is one of the neatest I've done in recent months.... shame it was on an ugly cab-forward 'modern'







I also did this Losi JRX2 shell earlier in the summer - it was a quick rattle can job to ready my car for the 'Revival' meeting that was held back in August, it came out better than I expected

[DerbyDan]

Great looking paint jobs. It wouldbe great to see the process of masking and layering etc... So my dumb brain see how its actually done...

Perhaps these sequence shots I took when I painted up my 'Masami Tribute' YZ-10 will speak 1000 words!

Inside of shell cleaned with warm soapy water - for shells that are to be used I normally scuff up the inside of the shell with a scouring pad - this helps the paint 'key' to the shell, here you can see that I have drawn the desired pattern on the outside of the shell with a permernent marker (the MrLexan shell has overspray protection film so will be removed when this is peeled off). With this complex design I applied masking tape to the inside of the shell & traced my pattern from the outside onto the tape... the tape was then removed, cut out on a cutting board & then re-applied back onto the shell. This is a very long-winded way of masking a complex design - the best way is to use liquid mask - painted onto the inside of the shell, left to dry & cut straight out.



Masking complete;



I then used the airbrush to paint on the black shadow;





I then painted on the main base colour - in this case it was a translucent green backed with silver - this was done with simple rattle cans.





I then removed the masking tape of the main design & painted on the various fading colours using my airbrush. Which were backed in white.



Then remove the window masks & trim the shell to fit the car;

[LosiXXkid]

At first I didn't know what to write as everyone else seems to have already said it. So, not wanting to be lost for something to say.....just..... WOW!

Fantastic work, Dan!

[LosiXXkid]

I'm also not confident in my abilities enough to paint shells for paying customers - I'd be worried that people would be disappointed

You're far too modest!

[mikeg911]

Loving the Cortina - even did the Lotus logo in the grill - nice1

[Lavigna]

Very impressive work. I am always amazed at the talent some of you painters have.