Hydrographics - anyone tried them on a 1/24 model?

[Jantrix]

I saw a fella on FB that did a low rider type hydrographics dip. Scantily dressed ladies. Looked terrific. It occurred to me that it could work on a current project. The builder steered me to eBay. I found lots of snake skin patterns that might work but the patterns are very large and would look great if you were dipping a guitar body or something, but would look terribly out of scale on a model car. 

Anyone tried this yet? Did you find  vendor with stuff for scale models? So far I've come up dry on my searches.

[espo]

A few years ago some model builders were doing something like this. They would spray different colors of spray paint on top of the water in a container that was big enough to lower the models body into the container. They would then slowly raise the body out of the water and set it aside to dry. Some would create a swirl pattern on the waters surface or even turn the body slightly as they removed it. The effects you can work on to what ever look you're going for.    

[cobraman]

I looked into the hydographics but could not find one in scale that would work.  I believe the paint application described above was called Swirladelic  or something like that .

[peteski]

2 hours ago, cobraman said:

I looked into the hydographics but could not find one in scale that would work.  I believe the paint application described above was called Swirladelic  or something like that .

That technique is quite old. The box art for the old (mid '70s) AMT KISS van model featured a model done that way.  The instructions on how to achieve that effect were included in the kit.

 

 

[Jantrix]

14 hours ago, espo said:

A few years ago some model builders were doing something like this. They would spray different colors of spray paint on top of the water in a container that was big enough to lower the models body into the container. They would then slowly raise the body out of the water and set it aside to dry. Some would create a swirl pattern on the waters surface or even turn the body slightly as they removed it. The effects you can work on to what ever look you're going for.    

This I have done before. I did the surfboards on this Lincoln. But it's not hydrographics. Hydrographics is some sort of film that is placed flat on a water surface, and an activator is sprayed on and then an object is pushed through it. It's become very popular for customizing most anything.