Traditional Flamed ‘29 Roadster

[OldNYJim]

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!

[dublin boy]

Great result.

[Dragonhawk1066]

That looks fantastic! I sure hope this isn't the paint job you said you screwed up.

[OldNYJim]

12 minutes ago, Dragonhawk1066 said:

That looks fantastic! I sure hope this isn't the paint job you said you screwed up.

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....

[Dragonhawk1066]

30 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

Haha!  No, luckily!  It was a simple two tone one that I’d had an idea for:

That would have made me cry if you'd have lost that paint job, lol. Sorry about the two-tone one though, it sucks losing any paint job, especially after you go through all of those steps. I've been interested in the Createx line as I'm getting more and more used to my airbrush, as opposed to using the Tamiya and Testors spray cans in the shed during the summer. I've seen and heard that they were a little tricky to deal with at first until you get more used to them.

[cobraman]

Good job, looks great !

[OldNYJim]

3 hours ago, Dragonhawk1066 said:

That would have made me cry if you'd have lost that paint job, lol. Sorry about the two-tone one though, it sucks losing any paint job, especially after you go through all of those steps. I've been interested in the Createx line as I'm getting more and more used to my airbrush, as opposed to using the Tamiya and Testors spray cans in the shed during the summer. I've seen and heard that they were a little tricky to deal with at first until you get more used to them.

I actually find them really forgiving and easy to paint - but everyone’s technique and preference is different!  They seem to be consistent quality, decent range of colors, easy clean up and inexpensive.

The things you have to work around are that they won’t stick well to most plastics without primer (no biggie for me, I prime everything anyway), even with primer a barrier coat is a good idea if you’re planning to mask over them (again, no biggie for me because I shoot a mist of Future over most paints before I mask them anyway to seal them in and give me the option of easily removing a layer if I mess up without going all the way back to the start) and they don’t like to be wet sanded (so I dry sand instead).  I like Tamiya’s acrylics too, but you get a LOT of Createx for your money compared to Tamiya’s little jars...

5 hours ago, dublin boy said:

Great result.

3 hours ago, cobraman said:

Good job, looks great !

Thanks fellas!! 

[PappyD340]

Outstanding work!

[Deuces ll]

??

[Snake45]

Looking GOOD! Drive on! 

[Plowboy]

That's some nice looking paintwork Jim! Never would've thought about painting in that manner. But, it clearly works very well!

[David G.]

Thanks for posting this!

The paint came out great!

It also works as a good little tutorial.

David G.

[espo]

Great tutorial on the painting process that you use. Where do you get your masks ? Is this your own design or is their a guide someone could buy to create a mask ?  

[absmiami]

Q1:  what airbrush do you use?  I’m fussing with my pasche - cleaning And using my dual action for the first time in a few years ...

well done

the createx is pre-thinned - right?

[OldNYJim]

Thanks for all the nice replies everyone!

2 hours ago, Plowboy said:

That's some nice looking paintwork Jim! Never would've thought about painting in that manner. But, it clearly works very well!

This technique is only really sensible when you’re trying to emulate light flames over a dark base, honestly...trying to cover black with light colors can easily result in a lot of paint build up that you have to then cover with a lot of clear to get level again, and obviously the more clear you add the more you’re hiding details and filling in panel gaps and so on.  Doing it this way allows the absolute minimum number of layers - and, provided you can visualize how it’s MEANT to look at the end works ok I think!  Definitely more thinking required than just masking the flames in a conventional way though...

1 hour ago, espo said:

Great tutorial on the painting process that you use. Where do you get your masks ? Is this your own design or is their a guide someone could buy to create a mask ?  

I design and cut the masks myself - I’m just using the basic Silhouette cutter and Oramask masking film which is pretty cheap and easy to get hold of.  The same trick works for just drawing (or tracing) them out on some tape and cutting them by hand though, which is how I used to do it.  
 

Lazy Modeler sells some great looking masks on eBay - I actually started selling a range myself but there’s a lot of scammers on eBay and eBay is quick to refund everyone for every little problem so I’ve stopped doing that.  I was getting, like, “paint bled under the mask when I used a spray can - I want a refund” and “I tore the mask putting it on the car, I want a refund” and “I ordered these and posted pictures of them on my Instagram but they never arrived so I want a refund”...so, yeah, leave that to Lazy Modeler ??.

1 hour ago, absmiami said:

Q1:  what airbrush do you use?  I’m fussing with my pasche - cleaning And using my dual action for the first time in a few years ...

well done

the createx is pre-thinned - right?

Just a cheap one from eBay, same as this;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/164127624071

Ive never had a brand name one so I can’t compare, but these work ok for what I’m doing now just fine!  Ditto my little $40 compressor - no fancy tools here, aside from the vinyl cutter that I like for masks.

Createx is generally fine to airbrush right out of the bottle, but they sell a thinner that I’ll use occasionally too.  Their paint is fairly thick out of the bottle but it lays down great, doesn’t seem to hide all the detail and doesn’t normally need more than a drop or two of thinner depending on how you like to paint.  I’ve got pretty ok at spraying it right as it comes I think, but if you’re used to regular lacquers you’ll definitely notice the difference in how it flows.  Main thing is, even painting it “wrong” and not thinning it so it’s watery like a lot of people seem to do it atomizes great and lays down fine for me!

Edited June 6, 2020 by CabDriver

[OldNYJim]

Got lucky with a low-humidity day yesterday and shot a little clear:

Got a couple of specks of dust in it that I can see, but nothing that won’t buff out...need to start making the rest of this thing now while the body does a couple or three weeks of drying...

[David G.]

It looks fantastic!

David G.

[Matt T.]

 Very cool! 

[crazyjim]

Excellent flames.

[slusher]

7 minutes ago, crazyjim said:

Excellent flames.

Totally agree!

[Impalow]

Outstanding work jim!   Ive been following both of these on instagram, but the larger images on the forum really show how amazing this is!!  

Nice job working the masks and alignment to get that pinstripe... very good idea ill have to borrow at some point! ?

[OldNYJim]

Thanks everyone!

On 6/12/2020 at 10:24 AM, Impalow said:

Nice job working the masks and alignment to get that pinstripe... very good idea ill have to borrow at some point! ?

I don’t think I’ve got it perfected yet, but there’s definitely some mileage in it I think!  I’d like to try cutting a paper mask that you could lay over the top of a masked flame and mist some black over to get a really accurate (but with a fuzzy edge) shadow effect on a set of flames too.  Obviously a black shadow over a black body isn’t going to work too well so I didn’t try it this time, but this trick gave me some cool extra ideas to try! 

Whilst the body’s drying and waiting to be polished did a few little bits.  I actually had an engine completed but I shot it with metalizers and it looked OK...but kinda dull.  Realistic, but not really eye catching or very interesting, so it spent a couple of days in the LA Totally Awesome to think about what it had done:

Whilst I’m rechroming parts anyway I stripped a load of the suspension pieces and cleaned them all up too, along with the steelie wheels, and got them in black enamel.  I haven’t used Alclad’s black enamel (which they recommend as a base) for a while, but this can of stuff that the hardware stores around me sell seems to gloss up nicely and Alclad takes to it just fine so I’ve been using that lately:

Shot the block with some Rustoleum silver, (which has a barely detectable flake, which I like) and then shot some candy red - much more interesting!

And I wanted a polished bare-metal look to the underside of the floorpan so that got some black enamel too - I’ll let these bits set overnight and then give them all a polish and some Alclad tomorrow.  Not totally sure how to achieve the effect I want on this part - kinda polished but not chrome - reflective but not too bright either.  Might have to do some experimenting to achieve what’s in my head...

Cant believe I spent ALL day on this and all I’ve got to show is some black parts and a red part - more interesting stuff tomorrow, hopefully! ??

Edited June 24, 2020 by CabDriver

[Lowlife ! !]

 

VERY cool flames, I've never seen anyone try a pinstripe round flames and they look so much better for it !

Might try those paints you use, painting has always been hit n' miss for me so I'm interested to try them !

[David G.]

That's a lot of work for a day's progress. All of it looks great too.

David G.

[Belugawrx]

Great paintwork Jim