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It's finally time to get off my duff and do what I've been procrastinating about for far too long. The "fun" begins.

Here we go: three bodies & wings all FasMasked and ready for paint. I decided to spray the FasMask on with a cheap $20 HVLP automotive touch-up spray-gun. I did a bunch of research and this is what worked for me, pretty much my first try:

-El-cheapo gun with a 0.5mm nozzle;
-FasMask thinned about 4:1 with warm water;
-Pressure at about 45 PSI;
-2 even but fairly thick coats, with blow-drying between coats until it dried clear.

I must say spraying it on is MUCH better than brushing it on. When you brush, the mask goes on far less consistently and in areas where it pools--really a problem with the complex Optima body--it can take forever to dry, even with a blow dryer. You also use a lot less FasMask when you spray it on.

I was looking for a short clip of a scene in the movie THREESOME on youtube, but couldn't find it. I did find lots of other interesting things though. It's not a porn, but actually a pretty good movie from the mid 90's. The scene goes a bit like this.

-How was it?

-Terrible.

-Impossible! Sex is like pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Anyway, that's what I thought of when I saw this... Please resume your regularly scheduled discussion thread...

Finished the easy one of the threesome. For some reason, I was at a total loss to come up with a decent paint scheme that enhances the AYK Buffalo's lines. It's not an easy body to design a paint-job for. Bear in mind this Buffalo is going to my buddy's girlfriend, who loves purple and blue. I was hoping to come up with a scheme that used those colors but wasn't too "girly". Did I succeed?

The light blue is a custom color; first I sprayed on a very light mist of light blue FasGlitter/FasKoat, followed by a mixture of FasSky light blue, some FasPearl White to lighten it up, FasKrome to give it a bit more sparkle, and a few drops of FasPearl blue. The main colors are AutoAir Pearlized Purple and FasPearl Razberry.

Great work! - Can I ask how you managed to get such nice straight lines for the stripes etc, was it just a steady hand? Most of my designs seem to involve long straight lines/pinstripes, which are much easier to achieve with old fashioned tape - I only use liquid mask for more organic designs with sweeping curves etc

Thanks Dan. The first thing is using liquid mask instead of tape. I don't think I'll ever rely on tape again, I got so fed up with paint bleed no matter how carefully I prepped or high-quality a tape I tried. That includes the blue 3M Fine Line vinyl tape that is often recommended. That stuff just gave me headaches. I found the best tape is probably the yellow Tamiya tape.

What I do now is use the blue tape on the inside, on top of the liquid mask, just to guide me to scoring the lines with a fresh X-Acto knife, #11 blade. Since you apply very light pressure, you can almost feel the tape edge as you score your line, very smoothly and slowly. So I also try to keep a steady hand, but the tape lines help guide the mask scoring. Then when the scores are done, I remove the blue tape and it's ready for mask removal & painting.

Nice work Coelacanth! Look forward to the other two.

Great work! - Can I ask how you managed to get such nice straight lines for the stripes etc, was it just a steady hand? Most of my designs seem to involve long straight lines/pinstripes, which are much easier to achieve with old fashioned tape - I only use liquid mask for more organic designs with sweeping curves etc

Dan,
One thing that I use that might help painters here get the nice lines is to use thin plastic cards. Something like a deck of playing cards. You can cut the curves you want, then hold them in place and cut the liquid mask using the card a guild. Then flip it over and have the mirror image on the other side of the body. Straight lines are easy if you can hold it tight against the body.

Great idea, Qballll, especially the mirror-image tip. I could've used that for my second body! I instead made a few reference points with Sharpie marker dots on the outside of the body and some eyeball & ruler measurements to lay down some tape. The Buffalo body is easy compared to what I have planned for the JG Optima Mid body, that's going to be quite a bit more complex. I've spent 2 nights masking & scoring already and I have probably one more evening of work before I start painting. And Barney's going to be even more challenging...these are my first fully airbrushed bodies so I'm learning as I go.

I like that AKY body a lot, has a nice retro feel to it. Reminds me of a Parma Stinger body I painted back in the day, similar lines and colors.

Whew, 3 solid nights of laying down a design, taping & scoring the mask and unmasking the primary color layer...2 - 3 hours each night. That part of the painting is what I enjoy the least. Tonight I'll hopefully get some actual painting done!

I'm almost finished the second body for the Optima Mid. While I'm pleased that the design and paint-job turned out fantastic, I'm not really happy with how the primary color turned out. I was trying for a midnight blue with a bit of flake in it, and somehow it turned out a bit greenish. I wasn't going for green or teal at all. I mixed FasPearl Blue withe FasPearl Charcoal--probably should've used black instead--and ended up with a color that looked good in the mixing bottle, but once the film was removed, it just wasn't what I was aiming for.

Oh well, if anything, I've learned to completely test-spray custom colors, with a backing spray and all, on a test piece of Lexan or 2L soda bottle first. I did do a few test-sprays but didn't back them properly before going ahead with the paint-job.

Anyway, I guess it still looks pretty good...I just need to tint the windows and seal it and OptiMutt will be almost complete.

Cool and different - I like it.

Thanks Dennis...for me, it's a love it/hate it thing. While I'm pleased with how the overall paint-job turned out, the greenish tint that the charcoal added to the blue just doesn't jive with the orange & red, and especially the blue roof. If it was midnight blue as I was hoping for, it would've really "popped" a lot better. Oh well, lesson learned. The Barney Optima is my flagship car so I better iron out the wrinkles in my airbrush technique. There's a lot more to learn with airbrushing than with rattle-canning, I've actually had to completely disassemble and reassemble my airbrush and HVLP touch-up gun just to better understand how they actually function (as well as to clean them).

Yeah, the maintenance is a hassle; that's why I just stick with a nice simple Paasche Model H external-mix unit. Still gotta clean it, but there are a lot fewer parts...

Mid body looks great! It has that 70s custom-van sort of vibe to it.

markbt73 wrote:Mid body looks great! It has that 70s custom-van sort of vibe to it.

Maybe I should've masked out a few heart-shaped or teardrop-shaped bubble windows!

Small update, I tinted the windows tonight. I used FasTint thinned about 4:1 with AutoAir Flash Reducer and sprayed on several thin coats...maybe 6 or 7 fine coats each, drying with a hair dryer between coats. It's a little more transparent than the pictures make it look, as the tint darkens when you put the body down.
And things only get worse for the Barney body. Here are the colors I'll be using and/or mixing, because not all of the colors are what I need right out of the bottle.