What is your usual recipe for painting bodies?

[JollySipper]

Hey, everybody! I thought that this could be a very informative thread for folks who may be struggling with painting bodies for one reason or another..... There's a Ton of y'all who get better end results than I can get, and I hope that some of you will post up your 'formula' for body painting! I'll start with this Camaro, which I did just like I do most of my paint jobs. The primers I use the most are DupliColor filler primer and Rustoleum flat primers. I generally use DC 'perfect match' for the color coats...... Then comes the clear! I've found out through testing and such that VHT Engine Enamel clear works great over the perfect match paints........ It's a 'hot' clear, though, so you can't use it over everything. Anyway, here's my modest effort at smooth and shiny paint!

So, you guys that have learned a formula to work by that get consistent results, please share what you do..............

 

[StevenGuthmiller]

I struggled with obtaining show quality paint for many, many years and dreaded the painting process, until I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t necessary at all to try to get a perfect paint job straight from the can or airbrush.

It was such a liberating experience when I discovered that a mediocre paint job can be transformed into a exemplary one just by spending a little time cutting and polishing.

No more worrying about all of the usual issues that often accompany the painting process.

Several coats of a good quality automotive primer, followed by a number of coats of lacquer color, and finally several more coats of a quality lacquer clear coat, and finished with cutting and polishing, and I’m all but guaranteed that I will end up with a perfect finish.

I can’t remember the last time that I had to strip a paint job due to an application issue.

I no longer have any use for experimentation or scrambling to find a color or a product that I have no experience with.

Duplicolor sandable or “primer sealer”, MCW, Scale Finishes, or Duplicolor lacquer color, Duplicolor Perfect Match “Protective Clear Coat”, and cutting and polishing never fails me.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[Dave G.]

19 hours ago, JollySipper said:

Hey, everybody! I thought that this could be a very informative thread for folks who may be struggling with painting bodies for one reason or another..... There's a Ton of y'all who get better end results than I can get, and I hope that some of you will post up your 'formula' for body painting! I'll start with this Camaro, which I did just like I do most of my paint jobs. The primers I use the most are DupliColor filler primer and Rustoleum flat primers. I generally use DC 'perfect match' for the color coats...... Then comes the clear! I've found out through testing and such that VHT Engine Enamel clear works great over the perfect match paints........ It's a 'hot' clear, though, so you can't use it over everything. Anyway, here's my modest effort at smooth and shiny paint!

So, you guys that have learned a formula to work by that get consistent results, please share what you do..............

 

Looks to me like the Camaro mostly just needs polishing

[JollySipper]

5 hours ago, Dave G. said:

Looks to me like the Camaro mostly just needs polishing

I'll take that as a compliment, thank you!   

An aside question...... Would you do any sanding to the Camaro, with very fine grit of course, before polishing? It looks a bit better in person........

Edited October 20 by JollySipper

[Dave G.]

3 hours ago, JollySipper said:

I'll take that as a compliment, thank you!   

An aside question...... Would you do any sanding to the Camaro, with very fine grit of course, before polishing? It looks a bit better in person........

Well it's only to polish if that's what you want !

I don't see it in person though, as such I can't say or see that it needs sanding. When that's the case for myself I just go with a fine scratch remover, that tends to bring up the gloss. Then I may use a soft polishing/ soft wax. Or not.

[bill-e-boy]

Pretty much as @StevenGuthmiller says but using an airbrush instead of rattle cans

Paint of late has been mostly Tamiya Surface Primer, grey or white dependent on final colour, sanding to 3200g and finally Tamiya LP lacquers for colour coats and clear followed by sanding/polishing process

Process is simple - execution is time consuming and should not be rushed 

[Radretireddad]

Two to three coats of Tamiya white primer from the can. The gray primer works well but the dried finish is not as smooth as the white. The white primer dries dead smooth with almost no eggshell finish. Three coats of any of Tamiya’s bottled acrylics thinned 50/50 and sprayed at around 22 to 25 psi with the airbrush needle set for a coat heavy enough to level itself out well but not drip, sag, or run. If I’m spraying Tamiya metallics, I’ll apply three to four coats of Tamiya clear the same way. I polish and buff with foam backed polishing pads I get at Hobby Lobby. They start at 2500 and go all the way up to 12000 grit. A final buff with Meguiars Plastix polishing compound and a soft cloth finishes it off perfectly. Createx and Craft store acrylics also work well but will need as many as five to six coats to be able to withstand the polishing and buffing stage without rubbing through to the primer.

Edited October 20 by Radretireddad

[StevenGuthmiller]

2 hours ago, bill-e-boy said:

Pretty much as @StevenGuthmiller says but using an airbrush instead of rattle cans

Paint of late has been mostly Tamiya Surface Primer, grey or white dependent on final colour, sanding to 3200g and finally Tamiya LP lacquers for colour coats and clear followed by sanding/polishing process

Process is simple - execution is time consuming and should not be rushed 

I use an airbrush as well, but mostly just for the color coats.

 

 

Steve

[Wickersham Humble]

Q: Steven, especially:  I began using the old 'rat-can' in the late 'fifties, and graduated in the 'seventies to using an air-brush, or just a 'finger-gun' or 'jamb-gun' (My old DeVilbiss EGA) for kit bodies-- but like the idea of 'cutting and buffing' for good surface looks. SO, on those good-enough-to-eat paint jobs you depict: how do you keep from cutting/buffing through surface details at all?  

I usually use 1/1 car finishes, as a former PPG store employee, and even with tough acrylic-urethane applications, sometimes buff through on raised sections, which necessitates a re-shoot job!  Doing 1/1 restorations like I have for 40-years, I know the tricks of masking off projections, character lines, and details -- but on a recent '57 Ford 'shorty' 2-door sedan build of my daughter's 1/1 car (which I just finished doing all the body work on) I got a ghost of the white styrene through the tail-light 'bulge' below the fin, even before I realized it.  This was with Summit AU 'enamel', fairly deep coat of Battleship Gray.

I'm not enamored of having to reshoot it, because of the obvious result of putting on thicker paint on details (that can't be masked) like logos, etc.  What's the trick you obviously use so effectively?

Wick

[Wickersham Humble]

Another issue: I've noticed that while using a good clear-coat to sharpen colors and provide lots of reflective shine, it is considered by most judges to go too far, and become 'out of scale' with the surface.  I think I agree with this, as the small scale of our kits doesn't really chime-in, scalewise, with either clear-coats nor most metallic paints.  The well-cleared surface looks like, if 1/1, the body had been soaked in clear epoxy, or something -- not very convincing.  However, at shows, it still seems to me that the traffic viewing the cars is drawn to clear-topcoated entrants -- especially judging by their comments overheard -- and they become the 'stars' of the table.  

So many metallic paints, even the ones sold by the raft of hobby-supplier specialists, have aluminum or nowadays mica flakes that, in true scale, would be more equivalent to Metalflake size.  Like the above perhaps over-cleared bodies, they often attract a lot of positive attention from the onlookers -- sometimes my own, included -- but are seriously out of scale.  I'd tend to pass-over these quibbles, but so often I see/hear criticisms of them from the really knowledgeable gang.

I once got a MA in Art, and know my history of painting; even the old masters knew that clear varnishing had the effect of providing two reflective surfaces for light to bounce from, which surely enhances the brilliance and depth of colors to the human eye.  That makes the artwork more attractive, surely.  Like our old automotive clear enamels, the clear varnishes yellowed quickly, of course.  I guess I'll continue using both 2K PPF clear and whatever metallics are out there, and not worry.

Wick

[Shark]

One thing I do before anything is wash the body with Dawn liquid detergent and lightly scuff the bare plastic.

[StevenGuthmiller]

9 hours ago, Wickersham Humble said:

Q: Steven, especially:  I began using the old 'rat-can' in the late 'fifties, and graduated in the 'seventies to using an air-brush, or just a 'finger-gun' or 'jamb-gun' (My old DeVilbiss EGA) for kit bodies-- but like the idea of 'cutting and buffing' for good surface looks. SO, on those good-enough-to-eat paint jobs you depict: how do you keep from cutting/buffing through surface details at all?  

I usually use 1/1 car finishes, as a former PPG store employee, and even with tough acrylic-urethane applications, sometimes buff through on raised sections, which necessitates a re-shoot job!  Doing 1/1 restorations like I have for 40-years, I know the tricks of masking off projections, character lines, and details -- but on a recent '57 Ford 'shorty' 2-door sedan build of my daughter's 1/1 car (which I just finished doing all the body work on) I got a ghost of the white styrene through the tail-light 'bulge' below the fin, even before I realized it.  This was with Summit AU 'enamel', fairly deep coat of Battleship Gray.

I'm not enamored of having to reshoot it, because of the obvious result of putting on thicker paint on details (that can't be masked) like logos, etc.  What's the trick you obviously use so effectively?

Wick

This is part of the reason why I use as many coats of clear as I do. (Usually 5 coats)

The depth of the clear helps to guard against burn through during the polishing process.

Other than that, just going easy on body ridges and around panel lines, and starting with the finest grit possible.

Just course enough to remove any orange peel or other imperfections.

Contrary to popular belief, if the right materials are used, detail hide is virtually non-existent.

I routinely use 5 or more coats of primer, 4 to 5 coats of color, (lacquer), as well as 5 coats of clear lacquer.

Anyone who has ever built an AMT 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix kit can attest to the fact that the front quarter scripts don’t get much finer than these, yet I was able to foil these after 5 coats of primer and 4 coats of color, before spraying an additional color coat, cleaning the script, and then adding the clear coats.

Even with that many coats, it’s obvious that there is virtually no detail hide whatsoever.

Certainly less than you’re likely to get even with a couple of coats of enamel.

 

 

 

 

Steve

Edited Monday at 03:27 AM by StevenGuthmiller

[StevenGuthmiller]

9 hours ago, Wickersham Humble said:

Another issue: I've noticed that while using a good clear-coat to sharpen colors and provide lots of reflective shine, it is considered by most judges to go too far, and become 'out of scale' with the surface.  I think I agree with this, as the small scale of our kits doesn't really chime-in, scalewise, with either clear-coats nor most metallic paints.  The well-cleared surface looks like, if 1/1, the body had been soaked in clear epoxy, or something -- not very convincing.  However, at shows, it still seems to me that the traffic viewing the cars is drawn to clear-topcoated entrants -- especially judging by their comments overheard -- and they become the 'stars' of the table.  

So many metallic paints, even the ones sold by the raft of hobby-supplier specialists, have aluminum or nowadays mica flakes that, in true scale, would be more equivalent to Metalflake size.  Like the above perhaps over-cleared bodies, they often attract a lot of positive attention from the onlookers -- sometimes my own, included -- but are seriously out of scale.  I'd tend to pass-over these quibbles, but so often I see/hear criticisms of them from the really knowledgeable gang.

I once got a MA in Art, and know my history of painting; even the old masters knew that clear varnishing had the effect of providing two reflective surfaces for light to bounce from, which surely enhances the brilliance and depth of colors to the human eye.  That makes the artwork more attractive, surely.  Like our old automotive clear enamels, the clear varnishes yellowed quickly, of course.  I guess I'll continue using both 2K PPF clear and whatever metallics are out there, and not worry.

Wick

I agree with your assessment that most metallic paints, (even those designed to be used for scale models) often still have metallic particles that are too large for 1/25th scale, but often, this is only obvious in photographs, and almost completely imperceptible when viewing with the naked eye.

If the paint you have used has flakes that are individually visible with the naked eye, you should certainly use different paint, but trying to find a perfectly in scale metallic paint is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, and even if you do find some that is very close to scale, in that scale, it’s almost impossible to tell that it’s even a metallic paint.

The ‘58 Impala depicted below is about as close as I ever got to a correctly scaled metallic paint with MCW “Cay Coral” poly, but if you weren’t told that it was metallic paint, you’d be hard pressed to be able to see.

I also agree about the toy like, overly shiny, “dipped in syrup”, or “hard candy” appearance that you often see with raw clear that hasn’t been toned down by polishing.  
This is a common effect that you often see with 2K clears, and I agree  that more often than not, it appears, (to me at least) to be completely unrealistic.

This is why I consider multiple coats of clear lacquer, followed by cutting and polishing a superior method, but of course, that’s just my opinion. 😉

 

 

 

Steve

 

[bobss396]

Lately I use Mr. Surfacer primers that come in 500, 1000 and 1500 grades. I use mainly 1000, the 500 I use to cover minor imperfections.

No airbrush, only spray bombs. Tamiya TS line, Duplicolor, Mopar touch up paints. Also the MM Extreme Lacquers. I have a heavy hand with paints, I do have to deal with a sag now and then.

I'll polish out the color coat before the clear. I'll skip the clear on some stock cars. I use a DM 9000 polishing kit. I cut the cloths into 4 pieces and mark the grit on the back with a Sharpie. 

Clear coats: With Tamiya top coats, the TS-13 clear or the TS-65 pearl clear works well. I like the Extreme Lacquers clear with their paint. It works over car paints. Lastly I have a big can of SEM 1K clear that lays down well enough to not needing polishing after.

[gtx6970]

Smooth primer is a must, Been using Tamiya's white primer the most lately . And Most time I dont even sand it 

 

Light coats of color, built up over a hour or two 

Same goes for clear if I do it.

Let that sit a few days and usually just a light wet sand with maybe a progressive sanding pads from about 3000 to maybe a 10,000 grit then polish with microfiber cloth and Meguires cream polish

 

Now, That said is my stuff flawless ? absolutely not.  I build for me not a show judge, So paint perfection is a trait I rarely try to achieve. This one just happened to turn out pretty darn nice , IMO 

You can not feel the transition from one color to the other. Best part is, Its all rattle cans 

Edited Monday at 05:30 PM by gtx6970

[JollySipper]

23 hours ago, Shark said:

One thing I do before anything is wash the body with Dawn liquid detergent and lightly scuff the bare plastic.

That's a very important step that not everyone does! Before any parts are removed from their sprue, I dunk the whole kit in warm soapy water...... The body usually gets scrubbed with Comet.  

[johnyrotten]

53 minutes ago, JollySipper said:

The body usually gets scrubbed with Comet.  

That's my go to.

[JollySipper]

1 hour ago, johnyrotten said:

That's my go to.

You can do a lot of stuff with it........ From knocking the shine off of tires to sanding around emblems and scripts. I've even 'sanded' crazed clear coat with it without damaging the paint!   

[johnyrotten]

3 minutes ago, JollySipper said:

to sanding around emblems and scripts

First I've heard of that one, I'll be using that. I usually stay a bit away from those areas, avoiding problems. Thanks for the tip👍👍

[bobss396]

On 10/20/2025 at 7:48 AM, Dave G. said:

Looks to me like the Camaro mostly just needs polishing

It looks like the same finish as a wrap job.

[bobss396]

On stock cars, I often skip the clear coat. I'll maybe do some color sanding and call it quits.

[Wickersham Humble]

I usually don't trust rattle-can paint; you just can't know what its made of, or how it will perform.  Having said that, I admit to using some on two recent builds just to get colors I wanted, and they seemed okay.  But, still I had little control over the spray pattern and amount of material that is delivered when the spray tip is pushed; it's mostly just ON/OFF, with no ability to adjust.  Eg, a gentle push usually just gets sputters and droplets.  As to 'decanting' aerosols, I don't like the off-gassing wait period, nor of course, the risks of poor materials.  

I've often advocated the use of 1/1 car paints (of which I have an embarrassing amount, doing 1/1 restos AND having worked in a PPG retail store.  Granted, they don't like to mix colors, especially exotics, in very small batches (the formulas usually don't support anything less than a half-pint size) and also I admit that they cost too much.  However, there is a lot of room to play in buying (or getting free, not too hard) what stores call 'miss-match' colors, most of which can't be told from the exact hue on a kit -- most are re-formulated because a bodyshop sprayed a test card or tried touching-up a panel and discovered some discrepancy.  Also, you sometimes find some kookie colors that way.  I have a whole gallon of 'hemi orange*' that somehow got metallic mixed in it (not my fault -- they usually only let me do quart lots!), a pint of 'Ultra Violet', 'Monster Green' and several others that are exotic.  Moly orange, school-bus yellow, a deep blue-black that mimics the old Nocturne Blue GM used, and so forth.  And, of course, I stick by 2K Clear 660 PPG for airbrushing topcoats, as it never yellows, and can be shot fairly thinly, to avoid the 'dipped in clear plastic look' that judges abhor -- though it impresses the man on the street no end.  Admission: I also have used UPOL clear and failing that, SEM clear from rat-cans, recently.

A trick: I have a number of '50-60's 'Kustom' cars in the works (and finished) some of which I begun with annual kits in the very early 'sixties, and I use 2K epoxy (or polyester) 1/1 primer/surfacer on them. It's hella durable, and builds up like crazy, plus can stand any kind of topcoat.  Advantage with 'Autorama' show cars (angel-hair era) is that it can yield a super smooth, sensual surface, and gives the look of a 'lead sled' custom like the famous custom shops did 'back when'. You just have to be careful if you want to save the original details, like moldings and weatherstrips, etc.  I also confess to using the primer/surfacer aerosols from Harbor Freight!

Anyway, I seldom buy any of the popular paint brands, much less water-based, because I'm satisfied with what materials I shoot.  Glad to share, also, if you come by and bring some small containers!  I have most of a gallon of USAF olive-drab, the old nitro lacquer, from about 1965...  

I have two nice Iwata airbrushes, but mostly I use the cheap purple 'finger gun' from HF, which performs very well with all paints, and has a surprising amount of adjustability.  Plus, is cheap to replace at will.  Gaskets for my old DeVilbiss EGA cost bank, sadly, and it's a syphon gun, which limits material mix in some ways.

*Our store manager was another old timer (who bleeds MoPar) and he told me that a metallic hemi-orange was a exterior option one year c. 1970 -- I dunno.

Ole' Wick  (Built first kits 73 years ago!)

This is a Starbird design (supposedly ,from a magazine) in '61, begun then and finished a few years ago; PPG JE 9700 black 

[Zoom Zoom]

I'm a huge fan of Tamiya's new LP line of lacquer colors in jars, I can mix nearly any color I want from them, and sometimes match aftermarket colors if I think I won't have enough of those paints to actually complete the paint job. I also can mix the color slightly lighter than the actual color so the model looks more correct with a more in-scale color appearance indoors under artificial light where they are primarily viewed. 

They airbrush and hand-brush beautifully. The jars are pretty small, I'd like them to be offered in the larger jars they offer their acrylic paint jars.

I use both Gunze/Mr. Hobby #46 lacquer clear and Tamiya LP-9 on 99% of my builds. I find the lacquer clear (airbrushed) gives the most authentic in-scale finish on top of the colors, and I've had a lot of positive comments from other respected builders when they see them in person. I recently acquired a DSPIAE polisher that's kind of a game-changer, it's a small miniature rotary tool and they sell both polishing pads and a variety of compounds specifically for polishing. I have a larger set of polishing pads for my older Dremel Stylus, it's a bit much, where the DSPIAE is amazing to work with on 1/24th/1/25th scale models. 

Two recent examples, both Tamiya Porsche GT3 RS builds, both are still getting finishing touches. The first one is inspired by an illustration of the 1974 IROC Porsche in stripes of all 15 colors. I'm likely the only one crazy enough to attempt this paint job, it took a stupid number of hours to accomplish...but I'm really happy with the results so far and I got a ton of positive comments in person at our recent ACME show. The model is still unfinished as I'm creating a smaller vignette display and it'll get more markings to be a fantasy modern pace/safety car with a combination of vintage IROC sponsor markings Both it and the Olive Green GT3 RS Touring were cleared with Gunze #46 and polished with the DSPIAE polisher.

[JollySipper]

That green Porsche is gonna be nice! Such a pretty finish and color............. I'd say you have it down to an art!

[StevenGuthmiller]

5 hours ago, Wickersham Humble said:

I usually don't trust rattle-can paint; you just can't know what its made of, or how it will perform.  Having said that, I admit to using some on two recent builds just to get colors I wanted, and they seemed okay.  But, still I had little control over the spray pattern and amount of material that is delivered when the spray tip is pushed; it's mostly just ON/OFF, with no ability to adjust.  Eg, a gentle push usually just gets sputters and droplets.  As to 'decanting' aerosols, I don't like the off-gassing wait period, nor of course, the risks of poor materials.  

I've often advocated the use of 1/1 car paints (of which I have an embarrassing amount, doing 1/1 restos AND having worked in a PPG retail store.  Granted, they don't like to mix colors, especially exotics, in very small batches (the formulas usually don't support anything less than a half-pint size) and also I admit that they cost too much.  However, there is a lot of room to play in buying (or getting free, not too hard) what stores call 'miss-match' colors, most of which can't be told from the exact hue on a kit -- most are re-formulated because a bodyshop sprayed a test card or tried touching-up a panel and discovered some discrepancy.  Also, you sometimes find some kookie colors that way.  I have a whole gallon of 'hemi orange*' that somehow got metallic mixed in it (not my fault -- they usually only let me do quart lots!), a pint of 'Ultra Violet', 'Monster Green' and several others that are exotic.  Moly orange, school-bus yellow, a deep blue-black that mimics the old Nocturne Blue GM used, and so forth.  And, of course, I stick by 2K Clear 660 PPG for airbrushing topcoats, as it never yellows, and can be shot fairly thinly, to avoid the 'dipped in clear plastic look' that judges abhor -- though it impresses the man on the street no end.  Admission: I also have used UPOL clear and failing that, SEM clear from rat-cans, recently.

A trick: I have a number of '50-60's 'Kustom' cars in the works (and finished) some of which I begun with annual kits in the very early 'sixties, and I use 2K epoxy (or polyester) 1/1 primer/surfacer on them. It's hella durable, and builds up like crazy, plus can stand any kind of topcoat.  Advantage with 'Autorama' show cars (angel-hair era) is that it can yield a super smooth, sensual surface, and gives the look of a 'lead sled' custom like the famous custom shops did 'back when'. You just have to be careful if you want to save the original details, like moldings and weatherstrips, etc.  I also confess to using the primer/surfacer aerosols from Harbor Freight!

Anyway, I seldom buy any of the popular paint brands, much less water-based, because I'm satisfied with what materials I shoot.  Glad to share, also, if you come by and bring some small containers!  I have most of a gallon of USAF olive-drab, the old nitro lacquer, from about 1965...  

I have two nice Iwata airbrushes, but mostly I use the cheap purple 'finger gun' from HF, which performs very well with all paints, and has a surprising amount of adjustability.  Plus, is cheap to replace at will.  Gaskets for my old DeVilbiss EGA cost bank, sadly, and it's a syphon gun, which limits material mix in some ways.

*Our store manager was another old timer (who bleeds MoPar) and he told me that a metallic hemi-orange was a exterior option one year c. 1970 -- I dunno.

Ole' Wick  (Built first kits 73 years ago!)

This is a Starbird design (supposedly ,from a magazine) in '61, begun then and finished a few years ago; PPG JE 9700 black 

Same car in a different style, done with multiple coats of Duplicolor primer, “Universal Black”, and clear lacquer, all shot directly from rattle cans, then cut and polished.

 

 

Steve