OldNYJim

Haha! No, luckily! It was a simple two tone one that I’d had an idea for: It polished out pretty nicely but there was a little rough patch on the body that I didn’t notice until basically when I was going to polish it. I primed it, couldn’t see it, did the red, couldn’t see it, did the black, couldn’t see it, did the clear, couldn’t see it - went to polish it three weeks later and I could see some texture under the black paint. Not in the paint or the clear; but under all the layers. One of the problems of using a lot of Createx paint, which I do, is that it dries matt you have to make sure the surface is perfect because you’ll likely never spot a little flaw until you’ve sprayed the clear (and in this case, not until I was ready to polish it). Turns out these bodies ALL have two little rough circles on each side behind the door...I thought I’d maybe crazed it with primer or something but nope, they all have it. No biggie if you bury it or know to look for it...but I screwed up and didn’t ?. So, no reason to build it with a pair of annoying flaws on each side - giving the whole thing a do-over ? These two will look cool together anyhow, so I’m not too bummed....

I wanted to build a classic black’n’flamed 29 from the new Revell Model A kit, and after I screwed up the paint on one of the others I was building this seemed like a good chance. Here goes with Jim’s backwards-flame-painting method™️... Primered body and the colors I’ll be using...I would’ve done white primer to save a step here but this thing had already been red once so I went with a darker color to make sure there wouldn’t be any bleed-through: First up, Createx white sealer and a light coat of Opaque white just to get it as bright as possible: Then, pearl white - it’s hard to spot the difference between the regular white and the pearl but I wanted a little flake and flip-flop to the flames without them looking too wild and modern: So, my flames will fade from white to yellow to orange to red, so I laid down a gradient along the sides and trunk-lid which I’ll mask over later with flame-shaped masks: Next up, because I can’t leave well enough alone, a little copper pearl flake over the darker parts to give a little extra flip-and-flop as the light hits the panels: With that done I shot a coat of clear and let it dry overnight - the next stage will involve masking and I don’t want to risk pulling up any of that paint. Narrator voice: *24 hours laterrrr...* Masks cut and applied: I wanted to add baby blue pinstriping around bottom edges of the flames to give them a little less of a flat look, and because I’d never done it before. So, next step is a coat of blue around the edge of those masks: And again, because I can’t leave well enough alone I wanted the tips of the flames to fade from blue to purple so I added a little of that too Now, I get why no one paints flames this way for the most part, because it looks like a mess basically the entire process, right up until the last step. But, stick with it and it works ok... Now that I’ve got the pinstripe color laid down I used a second set of the same flame masks and overlaid them over the existing ones...but down a fraction of an inch. I wanted a relatively narrow pinstripe that looked like it COULD be in scale so I didn’t need to misalign it too much... And now, finally, the ‘real’ color coats... Now, when I remove the first layer of masks it’ll just reveal a little strip of blue and the first mask, and when I remove the first mask I SHOULD have flames that look decent...or a hot mess ?‍♂️?. First layer of masks off... And, some careful and nerve-wracking unmasking later... Came out ok I think! Couple of tiny touch ups to do with the black paint but nothing too major...the trick with this airbrush paint is to peel the mask off as soon as you can so the edges don’t crack...but also the sooner you handle it the more chance of nicking it so you need to be careful - but got away with it on this one for the most part! I’m going full-glossy for the finish on this one so it’ll get some Testor’s enamel clear when the humidity isn’t sky-high here but hope y’all found the process useful, or interesting at least! More soon!

I was thinking about this today - it’s probably possible for someone with even a semi-keen eye to spot the difference between a ‘traditional hot rod’ built at the time, versus twenty years ago versus today. I wonder what the future has in store for traditional hot rods? ?

I like all of those ?. Your version of the California Star totally brings it up to date I think - as much as you can without a total redesign anyway. Amazing what a difference the changes you made make! That blue Vette immediately made me think of Eric Ritz’s Slambo:

Imagine how that paint will sparkle with those LED lights bouncing off it too - amazing! ?

Great post! These are just the kinds of things that I was interested in hearing about. A lot of the things you mentioned make me think of those Ken Block Hoonigan builds: Old bodies, new running gear but a long way from the resto-mod style, with influences from drift and drag cars thrown in the mix. I’d like to see a Hoonigan Deuce, bet it would be pretty wild.

Thanks everyone! Just a little update...got a really nice warm day here with low humidity - perfect for laying down some clear! Came out pretty smooth! Doing some more work on getting the frame really straight and making it look as nice as I can today - more soon!

Found this post today whilst looking for something else - a BUNCH of interesting reference material on scratchbuilding:

Polished out some paint and got it pretty shiny...then wasn’t ultimately pleased with it and put it in the naughty-tank for another go around Ohh, and made some moulds to cast some little bits that I couldn’t justify buying multiple kits just to get multiples of...I’m still learning with mould making, and I’m not getting AMAZING results but I’m getting usable results anyway so I’ll take it!

But remember when those “donks” were so popular that Revell did a whole series of them?! I never figured out why they didn’t call them Highriders...like lowriders, but high!

Absolutely - I didn't intend to belittle Chip's contribution to Boyd's success, and how much they advanced the look of hot rods and custom cars for a number of years. And it's great to see Chip still building amazing cars now - I'm just saying that his style is pretty much what he does (and does better than most)...I'm curious as to who the NEXT Chip Foose will be I guess

Unless you’re looking to flip them for a profit, I’d pick the ones I actually liked I think. Sure, it’d be annoying to find you missed out on the ONE $1000000 model in the batch, but if they’re for building/restoring anyway I’d totally be inclined not to worry too much and just pick my favorites!

Yep, donks. There’s a couple that I see on the road occasionally near me. Impalas on 30 inch wheels with stock brakes peeking through - seems safe ?? I think @JollySipper is right with his ‘neo traditional’ observation - there seems to be a lot of builds in that style right now...hot rods that use the right parts and general look where they COULD have been built back in the day on paper...but probably wouldn’t have been. I’m noticing a similar trend in custom motorcycle builds a lot lately - tonnes of retro-influenced but definitely-modern bikes with some really cool ideas: I’m finding a lot of inspiration from bikes lately, thinking how I could use some of the ‘flavor’ of what they’re doing, but for automotive subjects instead. I’d definitely like to see some hot rodders takes on the bikes above, would definitely be fresh and interesting I think!

Oh wow! Nice start! That paint looks GREAT! I love the color!

Absolutely outstanding bodywork! Great job!

Beautiful Steve! Love the color!

Thanks all! Hopefully the step-by-step was useful I forgot to post the inner fenders earlier - these will barely be visible on the finished car, but I gave them their own flames too just in case anyone were to ever peek behind the brakes to see if anything’s back there: This angle of the body really shows how much that red portion changes color with the Pearl overlay if you compare to the pink flip you can see in the previous set of pics - I love it! Beacuse I can’t help from rotating the paint stand round I figured I should get a coat of clear on there before I ruin something by playing with it...more soon!

I was really excited to do this next bit...the flames! Took three tries to get some flames I was happy with, but got there eventually - cut some masks on my Silhouette and laid them down over the paint I shot yesterday: And then shot black (and crossed my fingers that I didn’t ruin it somehow...) Then a half hour of careful de-masking later.... I need to seal them in some clear next to protect the black - the humidity’s REALLY high here this week so it’s not an ideal time to shoot the ‘real’ clear coats but I’ll put a barrier coat of Future over the whole thing to stop any damage in the meantime. More soon!

Thanks buddy! The thing that used to hold me up a lot on builds was waiting for the clear to set-up properly on the body before I can polish it out, so I’ve started the habit of doing the body first and then letting it sit for three weeks before doing the next part. The Testors gloss enamel I’ve started using dries to a touch in a day or two but you can’t get a REALLY nice shine unless you really let it set up right (or use a dehydrator, which I don’t have...) So, I get to do the fun bit first! I wanted to have this thing black with some pearl red-into-pearl-purple flames. Rather than paint it black and then try and layer enough paint up over that to get vibrant colors for the graphics, I’m going to do it backwards - bright colors first then mask the flames and hit the rest with black. Picked some colors out... First up, pearl red: Then the fade into pearl purple: Then a little thinned-down neon pink just to add a little fade to a lighter color at the ‘front’ of where the flames will go: I’ve been wanting to play with my new PearlEx set and this seemed like a good place to use it (like it’s not ridiculous enough already), so I mixed up a clear coat with their red-blue flip pearl and shot three coats of that, followed by a couple of coats of clear plus their bright pink powder. After letting that set up I shot it with a barrier coat of Future so I can mask over the top of it tomorrow and not have to worry about damaging the paint or pearl coats: Got some nice flip-flops going on there, especially coupled with the fades too - I like how from the angle in the pic above the first pearl coats are giving some red and blue highlights over the base colors, and then on the top surfaces the pink starts to come through. Of course, when I lay down the masks for the flames and shoot them almost all of that paint will be covered anyway and you’ll never see it again, but hopefully we’ll get some really cool color-flipping flames out of all this! More tomorrow!

Epic post dude! ????

Haha, as I posted that I thought “actually, they might well have been in the same room at one point!” Still, it made me chuckle to see that listing though - the OTHER famous Boyd!

Outstanding news! Which project will be getting your attention? Always enjoy seeing your work Ace!

Haha, the word that rhymes with ‘stick’ that begins with a ‘p’ is censored huh? Ok, “perk up it’s ears” then ?‍♂️?

Not following trends is the new trend! ?. I read something once that said something like “the internet lets anyone with an interest in the most obscure, weird, narrow subdivision of any possible subject or hobby find millions of other people just like them” I think that luxury that we have now makes it possible to build what you like without thinking “I don’t really have anyone to show this to who will GET it”. Not that I worried too much about that anyway, but it’s cool that even if I build the most hideously dated and unfashionable thing I can imagine someone will say “I LOVE it! I’m gonna build one just like it!” All that said, I wonder what the next big trend in hot rodding will be? Something will happen in 1:1 sometime and then, like rat rods and TRoGsters and street rods and custom vans and whatever else before them will make the modelling community BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH up it’s ears and start to build stuff to replicate the cool full-sized stuff that has gripped their imagination.

That’s SUPER helpful, thanks buddy! Exactly what I needed! I really appreciate you taking the effort to help me out there! Huh! Interesting!! I ordered a kit today knowing that they’ll work for what I’m looking for, and I knew I could cast the wheels once I modified them to my liking but I’ve never cast tires before...good to know that I might be able to raid my spares stash if I need to, or just get the Flintstone ones and save myself the trouble! Appreciate the info!!