A New-York-look Beetle?!

[David G.]

Beautiful paint scheme!

David G.

[espo]

Very creative design. 

[OldNYJim]

21 hours ago, TNT said:

Very cool. Did you cut the letters by hand or do you have a machine?

Just cut them on a Silhouette cutter - it’s a lifesaver for custom masks and stuff like this…

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

Whilst the intercoat sets up on the body, starter work on the interior.  I wanted a bright color, with some fancy floral-print looking fabric on the seats.  Tried cutting some masks but the designs I had in mind were too fine for the cutter to successfully cut, so I ordered a bunch of nail art decals and got to work cutting them up:

Here they are over a peach base (the final color will be MUCH brighter…)

To blend them in and make them look more monochrome, I then shot Createx candy over top, which gave me this:

Next up I’ll shoot some intercoat before masking them for the next step, but I’m pleased with the effect so far.

Seeing as most of this build involves multiple steps in the painting stage, I’m kinda jumping around a lot so I don’t get stopped too long before I can make more progress…so this afternoon I shot the first color on the chassis, suspension parts and some of the other ‘under body’ stuff too.  Started with the same Testor’s color as a base, but added some fades with other complimentary tones, for my own amusement:

Overkill?  Yep, probably - but I’m having fun ?

Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[TNT]

Was that a clear candy? Looks cool. I have some createx candys but have yet to shoot any. 

[slusher]

Very creative interior, Jim!

[cobraman]

That is one cool paint job !

[espo]

I like the interior design. I'm starting to think I may want to build a V-dub soon. 

[cobraman]

On 7/10/2022 at 6:25 PM, CabDriver said:

Just cut them on a Silhouette cutter - it’s a lifesaver for custom masks and stuff like this…

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

Whilst the intercoat sets up on the body, starter work on the interior.  I wanted a bright color, with some fancy floral-print looking fabric on the seats.  Tried cutting some masks but the designs I had in mind were too fine for the cutter to successfully cut, so I ordered a bunch of nail art decals and got to work cutting them up:

Here they are over a peach base (the final color will be MUCH brighter…)

To blend them in and make them look more monochrome, I then shot Createx candy over top, which gave me this:

Next up I’ll shoot some intercoat before masking them for the next step, but I’m pleased with the effect so far.

Seeing as most of this build involves multiple steps in the painting stage, I’m kinda jumping around a lot so I don’t get stopped too long before I can make more progress…so this afternoon I shot the first color on the chassis, suspension parts and some of the other ‘under body’ stuff too.  Started with the same Testor’s color as a base, but added some fades with other complimentary tones, for my own amusement:

Overkill?  Yep, probably - but I’m having fun ?

Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

This is the Cal Look Bug I had years ago . 

[David G.]

Cool idea for the interior, the seats look wild.

When I saw "New York Beetle" the first thing I imagined was a Beetle with a black & yellow taxi cab theme.  

David G.

[OldNYJim]

On 7/10/2022 at 10:27 PM, TNT said:

Was that a clear candy? Looks cool. I have some createx candys but have yet to shoot any. 

Yes sir!  Createx clear orange ? 

On 7/12/2022 at 8:19 AM, slusher said:

Very creative interior, Jim!

Thank you brother!

On 7/12/2022 at 8:31 AM, cobraman said:

That is one cool paint job !

And thank you too!  I like your 1:1 - the louvres in the step panels (whatever they’re called in Beetle terminology) are a nice touch!  And is that a color-coded fire extinguisher in the interior there?

On 7/12/2022 at 9:23 AM, espo said:

I like the interior design. I'm starting to think I may want to build a V-dub soon. 

I’d love to see that!

On 7/13/2022 at 6:25 AM, David G. said:

Cool idea for the interior, the seats look wild.

When I saw "New York Beetle" the first thing I imagined was a Beetle with a black & yellow taxi cab theme.  

David G.

That’s a cool idea - I’d rust it up and patina it and make it look like it did a million miles (all within a 20 block radius ?)

 

Spent a few more nights on the airbrushing since the last update - laid down some more ‘reverse’ lines, with black fades and then masked again and did some lighter colored highlights, and THEN did a little airbrushing and some subtle splatter-patterning on the roof and ended up with this:

Looks kind of a mess…but the next stage is where all that work pays off…candy coats! My idea here is to bury everything so far under a uniform color to tie it all together and make it look, at first glance, like it’s a solid color but with a bunch of little details to see as you work from front to back.  

A couple of coats of Createx candy red later, and we’re starting to see some progress finally…

Fairly plain at the front:

More complex in the middle:

And most complex in the rear view:

Next job, once this candy dries good and hard (and smooths itself out a little) will be some pearl powder to bring it back towards the orange and gold tones on the highlights when the light hits it.  

Excited to hit the bench again tomorrow for the next step!

Thanks for looking - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by CabDriver

[Zippi]

Boy, that Bug is looking pretty kewl.  Love how the paint is turning out.  

[espo]

Great paint work. Starting to see what you mean by a subtle pattern under the candy red.  

[slusher]

Beautiful paint  work Jim, looking forward too seeing it together with the interior!

[OldNYJim]

Thanks fellas!  

Tiny update; shot Pearl-Ex tonight to wrap up the main paintwork I had to do on the body before clearing it…first up a coat of copper and burgundy powder (which still needs some more mixing here…)

Which got me to this color - note how the red is starting to flip to more of a bright tone now on the highlights:

And then, finally, a second mix of yellow and gold which looked like this…

…which I laid down three coats of until it hit the orange shade I wanted:

If it looks good when it’s all satin-y like this, it usually looks good with a nice glossy finish too…I’m pretty pleased with how it came out!  A mostly monochrome-looking paintjob that reveals a bunch of detail to anyone who takes a second look (and maybe a little more at a third glance too…)

Whilst I had the Pearl Ex powders out, I shot a little on the underside too so that they can sparkle and shine in the sunlight that they’ll never see ?.

Thanks for looking - excited to get a bunch done on this one over the weekend!  More soon!

[Bugatti Fan]

A cool looking VW.

[David G.]

Nice color.

It looks like it's made of bronze.

David G.

[OldNYJim]

Thanks fellas! 
 

I’ve been prepping parts and priming and whatnot mostly this week, so I didn’t have a tonne of interesting stuff to post, but I got a few bits done…

Least interesting; got the tires painted with a new Vallejo set I picked up:

I had a second idea for an interior which I’ll either use on this one or save for another one - just a nice plain caramel-y leather look.  Started laying down some brown tones with airbrushed artist’s acrylics:

Scratchbuilt a Bosch coil and a step-down resistor - needed to get the firewall stuff done before I could assemble the engine:

And when that was done, got the ‘upper portion’ of the engine together…the block and trans attaches to the bottom side of this upper piece on these kits:

I drilled out the kit distributor for wires and added some plug boots, plus found some matching orange tube for fuel lines but mostly finished it box-stock aside from that…

Couple of little touch ups and details to add and this’ll be ready for installation - here it is with the block and trans clipped to the bottom:

And other than that, my main work on this project this week has been building up the clearcoat on the body - started with a couple of mist coats and I’m up to six coats now…plenty to be able to polish it without worrying about burning through, and the Rustoleum lacquer that I’m using levels itself out pretty well…

And that’s where we’re at so far…thanks for looking everyone!

[David G.]

Beautiful engine detail!

The body is coming along nicely too.

David G.

[espo]

I love the coil set up, and then disappearance behind the rest of the engine, which looks great, and you'll never hope to see it when it's in the car. Your second idea for the interior seems more reasonable for this type of build.  

[cobraman]

Looking good !

[slusher]

Great engine detail!  Going too be a sharp bettle!

[OldNYJim]

Thanks fellas!  A little more progress this past week…

Painted the wheels - went with Alclad chrome with a satin clear for a polished aluminum kinda look:

Plumbed the brakes, ran a fuel line and did some light weathering to the underside:

And, today, polished out the body - was excited to get that done (ideally without incident…)

I like to work thru polishing cloths and then compounds - saw a LOT of this view today:

And, this view:

Polished out with the cloths, prior to compounds:

And after a coupla three hours with fuzzy little squares:

Will do my usual second go-around tomorrow to get it as good as I can, but I’m pretty pleased - and mostly relieved that I didn’t burn through anything.  That would’ve been a DISASTER on this paintjob, and basically impossible to fix…

Thanks for looking, and for all the nice comments - more soon, soon as I’ve done more!

[espo]

Beautiful looking paint finish right now. 

[Steve H]

Great Beetle Jim! As one would expect, another fantastic, multilayered, complex, killer looking paint job. I really enjoy the “play by play”of how you create your paint jobs Jim, thanks for sharing. The rest of the build is great to!

Cheers, Steve

[cobraman]

Looks great !