DiscoRover007

So here's a small update for today. I made two throttle cables and attached them based on reference photos. I used detail master and metal wire from hobby lobby to make the cables. I coiled the wiring over some K&S metal tubing and cut them to fit. It's simple but I think it does enhance the engine quite a bit. Unfortunately there isn't much out there in terms of modern throttle body parts in photo etch. So I stuck with tubing and coiled wire.

Hey man I remember checking your build frequently. Looks great. You did some tasteful mods there.

So here are some photos underneath the car. Sprayed in ts-51 and lightly clear coated. The black hand brushed with Vallejo flat black. The exhaust was painted with alclad chrome, base coated with testors enamel gloss black thinned with lacquer thinner. Heat staining was done with Tamiya acrylic clears, yellow, blue, orange. As well as Tamiya acrylic bronze and metallic blue and heat staining powders. If you look carefully I applied cigarette foil as heat shielding for the transmission

What don't you like about the color? Looks great

Some better shots for you. I forgot to add that I detailed the dashboard primarily with a mix of future clear and semi gloss Vallejo clear. I find that depending on the dashboard sometimes simpler details look better and cleaner than trying to pick out everything. The gauges were decaled and sealed with future too. I should also add that I did use a wash on the seats. A mix of black and brown oil paints I believe.

Hey guys so here's one I've been working on for a while. In recently repainted the body because of some errors I was unhappy with on the roof. But everything else was painted about a year and a half ago. The supra is one of my favorite cars ever. My realistic dream car so to speak. I am wanting to make a trio of Blue, Red, and Silver. This one here is painted with TS-53 Racing Blue and TS-13 clear. The interior is painted with Vallejo air Tan and Black. Flocked with model master sand and black as well. I use the spray adhesive method and then use the white glue method to patch up any mistakes. The seat belt catches were scratch built from clear plastic. The gauge panel was handpainted flat black for contrast like the real car. The engine block was painted with XF-16 flat aluminum and then I hand painted the flat block on the block but that is not visible. The upper intake and accessories were painted with model master aluminum metalizer non buffing. The gunmetal detail took quite some time to mask and get right. That was done with MM gunmetal metalizer as well. The details were picked out with strictly Vallejo paints. I am currently trying to devise a way to create ignition wiring and a few other details for this one. I do have the model mieser turbo kit but I may save that for the red supra I have planned. I may keep this one stock. Quick mock up shot. More to come and I'll try to get some better pictures soon!

Iwata CR is a tremendous airbrush. Durable, inexpensive, can spray all types of paint and easy to clean. Plus it's gravity feed which is a lot easier all around than a.

Just from my experience gravity feed is much easier and fastet clean up than siphon feed. And you waste less paint. Well worth it in my opinion.

I paint in my garage. To eliminate dust I have a metal spray booth But I dont use the fan. It's just a box for me. But first and foremost take a windex bottle, fill with water or 50/50 mix or what have you. Completely spray your work area. Spray the air, the ground, and inside your box. Anywhere you could see yourself kicking up dust. Even your sleeves. The point is to trap any dust that could fall on the car body. Secondly if you have an air compressor. Wash your car body before painting and set your airbrush to a high psi to blow the water off. Make sure the water is all gone. Then paint immediately. When you finish painting let it cure enough to at least get some initial orange peel. If you move the body right after spraying you aren't helping yourseIf. Ive done this for about 2 years now and I've eliminated most dust issues. I still get a hair occasionally but this works 95% of the time.

Nice work. Really wish Tamiya would take on more American muscle cars. A 1/24 96 Viper or 1/24 Corvette. Would love to see a 69 Mustang from them too. They'd blow revells old molds out of the water.

Great start I made a how to thread on AF a few years ago describing how to correctly paint the headlight buckets on this kit if you want the modern look. Give it a whirl. http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1110998&highlight=Painting+tamiya+supra+headlight

The biggest thing I can recommend to a beginner to make the leap into higher quality model building is too simply hold yourself to higher standard of building. Do not allow yourself to accept mistakes and flaws. If you mess up, strip it down and paint it again until you get it right. And with that I do believe comes buying quality paints and airbrushes. If you are trying to get serious about the hobby you need a workhorse gravity feed air brush. I know a lot of people will say you don't but if you want to get really good you need to give yourself the ability to do that. I would agree with the OP that studying your subject is a must. One thing that I do. The one standard/minimum goal that I have to accomplish with a model is that it must look like the real deal from the outside. That means a quality paint finish, removing and or filling panel lines that do or do not exist on the real car. Quality products are a must. That doesn't mean you have to get real expensive you just need to know what to buy. For beginners reading this thread. For interiors and engines, stick to acrylics. Vallejo has the best acrylic brush paints you can buy. Their model air line has premium opaque colors perfect for interiors too. Tamiya acrylics also allow for a variety of metal finishes. Tamiya TS line and Duplicolor are awesome for body colors. I like the testors lacquer line too but most of their metallics are out of scale. Personally I still use spray cans for bodys(mostly) and use my airbrushes for interiors and engines. And there is no substitute for Tamiya masking tape. Lastly you have to treat the model as a work of art, every piece of it. We are artists, we just paint on models. The whole hobby is a lot like golf in my opinion. You need a lot of patience, practice, and decent clubs(supplies). You are competing against yourself and no one else. Take as much time as you need to make the model the way you want it to. Rushing will only lead to disapointment.

With the white and yellow paints you need to undercoat them with a more opaque color first. Or you simply need to slowly build the paint up with watered down coats first. I stand by Vallejo paints. They are the best brushing paints in the business.

I'd switch to vallejo for everything except Tamiya engine color paints(xf-16,x-11 chrome silver,) and clear acrylics.

I've heard about this for years but for the life of my I have no idea how you guys cut them to shape and make hose clamps or ignition items. Would love some advice on that.

What color is the paint? Did you apply a clear coat on the first paint job? I would mask off the panel that needs to be retouched. But be careful how many layers of paint you add to touch it up. You'll need to do light coats to build a base and gradually return the spot to the same depth of color as the rest of the paint. If you put on too many coats you may have a piece of the car that looks uneven. And in that case you would need to respray a whole section of the body to blend the whole thing back together. If you sanded through clear coat on a metallic paint job just make sure you do light coats because spraying metallic paint over a clear coat on itself will tend to give it much more depth which can appear uneven. The section that you respray may end up looking like fresher paint than the rest of the car.

Nissan Patrol

My realistic dream cars The #1 Ultimate badass. Best design ever. My fantasy if I ever make millions....

In my opinion OP it was the paint that caused your bleed through not the clear. I've had this issue with Duplicolor paints many times. It might have something to do with how heavy your coats are but you will get ghost lines and "bleed throughs" if you are not careful. I would use primer sealer on any body you want to paint with a duplicolor lacquer.

1500 is sufficient but I take it 3000 now because 3M has come out with a 3000grit sponge pad that makes sanding a whole lot easier. Testors metalizer is the very best paint to use if you are wanting to paint a car body silver. It's the only thing I've seen that truly matches an "in scale" grain for a 1.24 car body. Here's a tamiya NSX i painted with aluminum metalizer non buffing. Primed with Zero primer and wetsanded with 3000 grit. Cleared with testors wetlook.

What are you trying to paint? Metalizers are designed to be sprayed on bare plastic. If you are priming the surface first you need to sand it down up to 2000-3000 grit or higher. The metalizer is an extremely fine grained silver. It will show any imperfection or paint (primer in this case) texture underneath it.

Honestly I just judge it by feel. If you've put on a couple of heavy color coats just let it gas out for a few days then apply clear. Waiting for weeks isn't necessary and I haven't had a problem with it. The problem with ts-13 is that it is "hot". it can and will destroy decals. This is why wetlook clear maybe more suitable in that application.

I use the wetlook clear now as well. I'm a heavy handed polisher and this stuff goes on a little thicker than Tamiya and is a little tougher too in my opinion.

For me personally. The joy in building is trying to do the best I can. I don't go all out with aftermarket parts and photo-etch but I definitely use ignition wires, fabricate my own hoses and seatbelt catches. I've been building model cars for a long time now. The one lesson that has made the biggest difference in my modelling is this. You have to treat the model like a work of art. Secondly you need to give yourself the leisure and time to do the best you can. It's like anything else. You can't just magically rush it and expect it to look good. You don't hand paint an engine with silver because you know good and well it'll clog up detail, show brush strokes and look like a mess. No, what you do is research photos of this engine online. Then with your experience of paints determine what would best represent the texture of that block. Smooth engine surfaces are best replicated with MM aluminum metalizer. Rough texture= Tamiya XF-16. You have to simply change the way you view the model. Expect more of yourself. If you make a mistake, do it over again. Even if you have to strip something in brake fluid. If you want perfection you have to strive for it. Also another thing. There is no substitute for quality tools and supplys. If you want to get serious about modelling. Buy an airbrush and buy a good one that'll last a long time. Don't even waste your time with cheap plastic ones. Iwata is amazing here. This is the same for paints. I'll save a lot of people some trouble here. Paint your interiors with acrylic paints. Vallejo is the best by far for this. Their brush paints do not leave brush strokes and dry evenly. Their airbrush line is fantastic too. Their colors are very opaque as well. For me its like this. Bodies=Tamiya/MM/Zero/Testors One coat. Engines=Tamiya acrylic/MM Metalizers/Vallejo. Interiors=Vallejo. Brush Paint details=Vallejo. I also find that painting areas of the model that are hidden on final assembly helps reiterate to myself that this is a piece of art. Sure I might waste a little more paint. But I know that I painted those areas when it's all said in done. And I know that if I were to do a photo shoot with just chassis it would look extremely neat. Lastly. As i said before do not rush anything. If you are not giving yourself the time to strategize, research, and do your best work you will simply not accomplish it. I may never enter a model competition because I know my best means going at my own pace. Planning is key to this hobby as well and it all ties in with patience. If you have a curbside engine with molded in detail for example. The inexperienced modeller would try to brush paint those details. He may or may not do a fine job. But the expert will carefully mask those areas with tape. He'll airbrush parts he knows he can't paint with a brush. Then he'll mix a few acrylic colors to a shade he likes, dilute the mixture and begin shading highlighting areas of the engine bay with a brush. In regards to how much detail I put on a model I judge by outside appearances. If the body does not match photos of the real car it must be modified and fixed. This is regards to panel lines mostly. Some kits are engineered to have separate body parts where on the actual car the panels are a whole piece. The tamiya XJ220 is a good example here. I try to achieve details I can reasonably do and replicate to give the appearance of complete accuracy from an outside glance.

I tend to use solo cups. Crack the lip of the cup and it will adjust to the size of the body and usually fit securely.