How to airbrush a bonnet mural - loads of techniques [a project log]

he's currently off at uni so i dont think there'll be much/any progress, after seeing his work in the flesh it looks even better than the pictures!!!

StevenG
 
StevenG said:
he's currently off at uni so i dont think there'll be much/any progress, after seeing his work in the flesh it looks even better than the pictures!!!

StevenG
Click to expand...

Cheers for that Steven.

Sorry guys, I know I left this one in the cold... I usually have to leave most of my projects in the cold when they near the end for other reasons, but I'll be glad to finish this one, as long as the mods are.

Some of my projects are seen as self pimpage, and as a result most of them stop being posted. I'd like to say that this is not the case. I'm not looking for any work in this field currently, as I am, as steven says at Uni,working towards a different career. Anyone who knows me, will know that I'm in it for the love of doing it.

Work stopped ont he bonnet when I had to start uni last year. I also had loads of stuff to finish off. This summer has been the same, but now with all of my other work finished, I have a week to finish this bonnet. I've no doubt that it will be off again for some re-working, but for now I'm looking to have it done for the end of the week!

Problems I've ran into:
My car is like a patchwork quilt. It must had had repairs before I got it, and every panel is a different shade of yellow :( not so long ago, I had some repairs carried out on it, changing one of the front wing's colours to yet another slightly different shade of yellow. So, as a result, it's a mystery which panels are original 'fun gelb' and which are not, so I've had to go for a colour which is matched tot he original, but will not neccesaraly match the two wings, or front of the car that the new bonnet will meet. I know this miss-match will happen, and there is nearly nothing I can do about it. THe next time it's having any sparaywork done to it, I will simply work towards doing every panel with the same mix of yellow that is on the bonnet - think of it as the permanent bit ;)

So with that being said I'll move on to how this project is shaping up. I'm sorry for the gap in the photos, I did quite a lot of ork without taking pics - rather silly.


After painting the airbrush, I moved onto the skull.

THe first step was to fill in most of it;s shape with black. This is to block the paint underneath it. once that was done, it was just a case of painting it with all of the greyscale paints I displayed earlier, again avoiding using 0% black (pure white), but in this case I did use quite a bit of 100% black.

The result was this greyscale skull:
imgp2113.jpg



I then gave this grey skull a coating of bright yellow Candy. Now, this tellow cany is different to every other yellow as it does not carry the orange hue that most do, and also does not darken as you apply more, so you can't see where it;s heavy or light, and it cannot 'brighten' an already dark, or more saturated area. This means I can safely paint it over the flames, and you will not be able to tell.

this was the result:
imgp2115v.jpg



looks terrible doesn't it?


After the yellow layer had dried, I went in with a lime green, which has most of the same unique qualities that my special yellow cany does, but just puts more colour into it. once that wasdry I went in with the big guns! A strong green candy that quickly darkens to black if heavily applied. I used this to push back areas which should have been shaded, but retain highlights.

imgp2116.jpg


once I was finished with the candy work, I went at it with some yellow paint, then layers of yellow and lime candy, then finally a very light, almost white yellow paint to add extreme highlights. THis is where it is at at this stage:

imgp2132.jpg


I love painting in this way, with candies. It's nearly imopossible to do this with regular paints.


I'm not finished with the skull, I like to leave artwork like this alone and work on something else so that I can come back with a fresh look and see any mistakes, or things that need adjusting.


To give me something else to work on, I decided to unmask all of the flames and panels to see where I was up to. I then decided on a colour for the pinstriping and set about it. This is what I found:
imgp2119m.jpg


I masked up cetain sections where flame licks overlapped, then blew in a little bit of orange to form shadows:
imgp2123j.jpg


This is where the problems started. I'm using House of kolour triping paints, soemthing which I've never used before. I bought them a while back.
They are special because they can go straight over artwork, and can be clearcoated afterwards. I'm used to striping with one shot enamels, a traditional type of paint which is oil based and designed for the sole purpose of pinstriping. Unfortunatly, Oneshot has no place in custom graphics, and can only be laid over the top of clearcoat. THere is an additive that you can add to make it suitable for clearcoating, but most painters would tell you that it's simply not worth the risk.

Adding an oil based paint, with a brush which is stored in oil, into the mix with a solvent based, short tempered paint system is never a good idea.

These HOK striping paints could be described as many things, but awful just about sums it up. The two brushes that I have, that are specifically made for these paints were as useful as an inflatable dartboard, terrible things. It's the onl thing I can use though :( I ended up using a very fine excalibur brush, designed for no such job as the one I was doing, and HOK 'lime green':
imgp2124x.jpg

(looks like the tin was in the line of fire of some primer :/

I did attempt to stripe the flames the usual way; one long smooth line to outline the shapes, but the paints, brushes and myself were having none of it. To avoid certain disaster, I opted for a 'shredded' style of outline. It's kind of the easy way out, but I actually really like it, and did want to use it from the get-go, as I was going for a fraser style for the flames.
Here is the result:
imgp2130b.jpg


I hope this will make up for the Lack of updates! Again, feel free to ask any questions, as I'd love to answer 'em!
 
I use an airbrush very unskillfully for some of my radio control modelling and watch dial making and it blows me away when I see work this good. The learning curve must be stellar. Love it.
 
Thanks guys :)


I've just completed the first session of clearcoating today, so tomorrow I will sand it all down then clearcoat again. The day after that I'll sand it all down again, then re-clearcoat, then the day after that I'll wet sand it all with 2000grit paper, and polish it all up to a shine.

so, if it all goes to plan, I should be done by wednesday!
 
Bug One said:
Are you doing anything to the rest of the car?
Click to expand...

I don't think so... It was the plan when I first got it, to do the whole thing; until I actually got into these cars and researched them a little bit more. It would be a shame to ruin one really, as they are sought after, and the more origiginal, or stock they are the better.

Hence buying a new bonnet, not spraying the stock one. I have got the option of ading to the design if I really want to, but I think I'll just leave it at that.
Maybe in a few years when I'm out of uni, and have a new pickup to play with I'll fully paint that? I'll be keeping / storing this one though.

I do plan on re-spraying the rest of the car though, as I mentioned before, it's a patchwork of mis-matched paints. It's had some weird painting history. It's a shame the sides and front wont perfectly match the colour of the wings and front of the car, but the yellow on the new bonnet is repeatable, I have the codes. As I mentioned earlier, the two wings are slightly different colours to eachother; it'd be silly to try and match them.

[update]
just finishedsanding the bonnet. I'm using a slightly different clearcoating system now which hardens quicker, so I've sanded it all down to night to get rid of rough spots, smooth out edges, give the next coats some key, and also to re-open the surface of the paint to let it breath over night.

might have some pics tomorrow, but there's really not a lot to see.
 
I missed this thread the first time around, thanks for updating it. Some great work there, I bet it takes quite a while but the results look great! :)
 
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