New Site Format
     As you know
  StampedeProject has
  become way more than
  just Stampede, Traxxas,
  to now include other
  RC brands, accessories,
  and cars. I still don't sell
  anything, I just
  enthusiastically promote
  those RC products I think
  are great.
     Take a look through
  the above links.
  I simply had too much
  information for my
  old site format.
  More fun projects
  coming...
  - Tony

  StampedeProject.com

  Please Private Message
  me Here on the
  Traxxas Forum    

  Copyright 2007
  all rights reserved 

General RC Painting Tips
From Rattle Can Paint Jobs to Using an Airbrush.

OK so the guy down the street has a stunning paint job and you want to know the "How To Paint 101".  First off and contrary to popular opinion, you don't have to have an airbrush to do a cool paint job.  What you do need to learn are masking skills, how to use stencils and paint masks, shading, and how to know what colors go with what colors - all of these are things I am personally working on improving.

Keep it Simple
Although those twelve color RC CAR cover paint jobs are killer cool, some of the paint jobs I like best are just two colors with some great mashing work.

Paints
Just so we are clear on paints, there are two basic types of paints; water-based and non-water-based.  The rattle/spray can paints are all non-water-based.  Typical Lexan airbrush paints are FasKolor's water-based paints.  The non-water-based paints are more resistant to solvents where as he water-based paints allow very easy clean up.

Clean Up
Clean up wet paint with most non-water-based paints can be done with the paint's specified cleaner (usually mineral spirits).  Water-based paints are far easier hot water and windshield washer cleaner will have your airbrush squeaky clean in under a minute.

Screw Ups
Let's say you get done with your masterpiece that you have spent long hours of fitting the body, masking, painting, and your time cost does not include the original cost of the body.  All that work and your work of art is hidious, seriously ugly, like you actually laugh at it and wonder what in the hell you were thinging creating such a butt ugly paint job - don't worry all is not lost.  If you shot the paint job with an airbrush and all water-based paints, head down to your garage sink and scrub the body in the hottest water you can stand with plenty of dish soap and with a stiff dish washing brush.  Hit the detail areas with an old toothbrush and presto, a couple soaps and rinses later you have a perfectly clear body again.  With non-water-based paints its a little tougher but follows the same process but with a different paint remover.  I have had great success with 20-30% nitro, however I want to point out that the stuff is obviously potentially explosive so reasonable safety precautions should be taken.  Using nitro in several waves with a toothbrush will eventually remove all the paint, however you will still need to remove the now fluid paint on the body.  A healthy spray down with WD-40 then followed up with several sudsy baths with revel a like new clear body.  I have also heard of using brake cleaner or buggy blast as a cleaning agent instead of Nitro, however I have always just used nitro with good results and it's fairly environmentally friendly.

Masking Materials
Scrap the yellow masking tape and go buy some 3M blue painters tape all I can say is there is a world of difference. With tape just make sure your are really sticking down the edges or your will suffer the dreaded paint bleed and have rough lines. Other masking materials include airbrush stencil sheets, they stick on like sheets of plastic and you can then cut out a design and remove the unwanted mask area - far, far easier to deal with than the liquid masks, however they are expensive, use them for detail areas and tape for large simple coverage areas and it's not too bad.  Parma liquid mask will also net you very clean lines, however if you don't get 3-4 heavy coats on it simply sucks to remove from the body and can leave you swearing.  If you buy it consider that one of the small bottles will do one medium body - I just buy the stuff in 16oz bottles now due to the number of bodies I am painting for articles now.  It is pretty cool stuff, paint a couple coats on, let it dry overnight and then track and cut out your designs and remove the area to be painted.  THis is handy stuff when you get into multi-color paint schemes.

Fixing Line Bleeds
Someone once told me to use a toothpick or bamboo cooking skewer as an eraser to correct bleeds - works great use it all the time, because I generally suck as masking.

Pattern Paint Masks
There are almost limitless paint masks that allow you to just buy, apply, paint, remove paint again and give you a good clean paint job.  Start learning how to shade and fad and these simple and cheap stick on masks deliver very trick paint jobs.  You can also make your own with airbrush masking stencil sheets - same deal.

Stencils
These don't stick on, you just place them over something hit them with paint and the pattern is transferred.  Iwata's Artool has a ton of great completely re-useable stencil packs that will generate stunning paint jobs very quick and easy.  These are my favorite way to do skulls or flames.  Again you can make your own from anything from paper to all that overhead projector film you have laying around somewhere.

Shading
I am not going to give you advice on this becuase currently I kinda suck at it.  See Iwata's site and they have all sorts of "how to's".

Colors
Again I am a great engineer, but when it comes to colors, I might as well be blind - my solution is I let my wife pick out the colors and they always look good.  

Airbrush vs. Rattlecan
No doubt that airbrush is king, however a two color rattle can paint job can still look great and will get you started.  An airbrush will not make you a better artist, it will just help apply paint more accurately.

More painting tips and pics coming.

This page is a work in progress as basically just got into painting.