Everybody loves a threesome

[Qballll]

Love the design on that last one.

[Coelacanth]

I originally had a design in mind for the Barney car that was nice & symmetrical, with a scaley design that was somewhat stylized and simplified, although quite complex with the number of colors I planned to use. Obviously Barney needs scales, but purple and green aren't exactly badass in most people's books, and don't quite blend well, either. So I ended up doing a last-minute design change that would hopefully make Barney look more badass.

With a bumper like the one I designed--and everything else--I needed to come up with a paint scheme that used the colors of the anodized aluminum chassis parts, but was also cool and mean-looking. So how does one make purple and green look mean?

I had a last-minute insight that hopefully translates to paint exactly what I'm thinking in my mind's eye.

I decided to reduce the number of colors, make things more asymmetrical, more free-hand, not so characterized...kind of hard to describe, but I wanted a look that was more organic, natural, biological...

I wanted a design that had more fades than straight-cut lines, something more free-hand...in other words, something pretty much the opposite of the Buffalo and OptiMutt bodies. This won't be easy...but Barney will end up being my "flagship car", I'm hoping it will surpass CYANide, which is a tall order. So here are some concept drawings, I can only hope that things turn out like I'm envisioning them. The top left is a doodle I did with some spare time at work, and the top right is a more fleshed-out diagram. The bottom drawing shows that I'm planning to "color outside the lines", something I always did when I was a kid--I never stayed inside the lines, I made my OWN lines--and hopefully it'll give the body a meaner, more sinister look.

Only time will tell...this will be my first attempt at airbrush fading, I don't know if my newly-learned skills are up to the task...

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Good luck! It's always scary when you spend so much time and effort thinking up a paint scheme. I find it to be very ZEN like though.

[Coelacanth]

Thanks...In some ways, doing more freehand, asymmetrical stuff will be easier (less masking and designing) but the necessary fading will require me to work on a new skill that I have little airbrush experience with. The potential for failure increases exponentially!

[integra22t]

i dont know what paint your useing or even if your useing a 2 stage airbrush but some tips on fade are .. thin the colour to 2x as thin as you usaly thin the paint to and turn your air pressure down abit or it will spot and run , like this



aim for a spot past where you masked the body and start spraying there working towards the part where you want paint

and make sure the air brush is working good as if it studders or spits at all youll see it in the fade

and last thing is to watch out for curves and bumps in the body as they will grab the paint and make spots where the fad isnt

good luck

[Coelacanth]

Thanks for the airbrush tips, I appreciate it! I'm using a cheap $30 HobbyKing dual action gravity-feed airbrush, I actually bought a pair of them. 0.5mm needle/nozzle, I've found I can go down to about 25 - 30 psi with non-metallic paints (I'm using FasKolor). I've already spent a few hours watching YouTube and other airbrush tutorials and will definitely be doing some practice-runs before going to town. I'm still getting used to the relation between pressure and paint viscosity. I'm a total airbrush n00b.

[Coelacanth]

It's hard for me to believe that the Barney project started almost exactly 2.5 years ago, has it been that long?? But now there's light at the end of the tunnel and I'll be able to wrap it up soon! I finally painted a body I think perfectly suits the chassis. A metallic grape purple with green scales was always the concept, but I decided at the last minute to modify the early simplistic design to make it look more natural, using fades and shadows instead of more simple straight-cut lines and solid colors.



That turned out to be way more complicated, and frankly, I was in over my head with only 2 airbrushed bodies' worth of experience. I guess 3 bodies isn't enough to make me an airbrush guru!

Still, I like how I was able to use the Optima body design to incorporate nostrils & scales, and tried to get the windows to look meaner and a bit eye-socket-like, without getting goofy and painting in googly-eyes or teeth on the sides. (The custom bumper has the teeth already.) It's a car, after all, not a dinosaur with wheels. At least, I think this Barney looks more badass than the plush mascot one.

I need to do something to stiffen the wing, but have to wait for the paint to finish curing before working on that. It's the perfect size & shape, but the Lexan is relatively thin and it twists too easily. I'll probably address that issue on the weekend.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Looks good. To stiffen the wing you could just put a second clear piece of lexan underneath.

[Coelacanth]

Looks good. To stiffen the wing you could just put a second clear piece of lexan underneath.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was planning, I figured I'd attach two 1"-wide strips of thicker lexan across the width of the wing with servo tape.

[slotcarrod]

Looks great Marc! My first impression was a dragons head before even reading your comments!

[Coelacanth]

Funny, you're right--it does kind of look like that, never really noticed it before, though!

[integra22t]

yep going to have to change the name to puff the magic dragon lol

[REMJ666]

Good job...

[clutchcargo]

If you are a airbrush noob, I look forward to seeing your work down the line. Its not really hard I have been airbrushing for about 25 years and really have painted many different types of things,Just have fun with it, GREAT work.

[Coelacanth]

Thanks for the comments, Steve! I certainly have a lot to learn, but I think I was hampered by the limitations of cheap $25 HobbyWing airbrushes. They were okay to learn on, but practically don't work at all for spraying FasGlitter/FasKoat mixtures, and don't do fades very consistently. Give me straight lines with tape, liquid mask or a template (the scales for example), and I'm good-to-go. My custom color-mixing needs a lot more practice for the actual color to match what's in my mind. I think I need to consider a decent airbrush if I want to improve on my fades or fine lines, though.