Hi guys, back again after a long break, hope you all had a good Christmas. I got plenty done over the break on the model. I've currently finished the model itself and the driver, and I'm working out how best do to the base. This week I'll be finishing off the driver updates, I'll get to posting the final car updates in the coming weeks.
So, as of last time I had the driver primed and sanded ready for the topcoat. To do the sponsor logos on the suit I had 2 trains of thought that I'd be able to put in place with no issues. The first was to mask off the logos as best I could and then try and draw/trace them on afterwards, my thinking being because they're so small and he'll be in the car it'll hardly be visible. This school of thought had positives and negatives as I'll get into. For information this is the main image I used as a reference point.
So I masked off the primer and marked out the logos:
Then I trimmed the masking as best I could and masked off the helmet ready for spraying:
Quick colour test
Top coats (x 4) done:
Helmet masking removed:
I then decided to completely do the helmet before moving onto the logos, so I masked off the torso to avoid accidently getting yellow on the suit. Shown below is the masking and 1st coat of yellow on the helmet, you can see I was right to mask off the helmet as the yellow would not have covered the red very well. 1st photo is the main reference photo I used. Visible on the 3rd photo is where I had smoothed off some of the primer that had dripped while it was drying:
Overall took about 5 coats of yellow I think:
Next up I masked the stripes off on the helmet. I appreciate that the real helmet has a white border on the stripes but there was no way my skills were up to that so I've done them single colour. This was quite tricky to mask as I had to get the stripes as straight as possible, however the helmet is curved and the masking tape is straight so it was quite tricky to do without it creasing and folding in places, you'll notice what I mean on some of the photos particularly where you can see the back of the helmet:
And then I did the famous Senna stripes, this took about 4 coats:
After this was dry I removed the masking on the stripes, you can see some areas that required touching up (unavoidable really) but overall I was quite happy with how they turned out:
Next up I decided to take the masking off the torso and have a look at the logos. As the majority of the helmet paint was done at this point I decided it would be fine. You can see below that the colour contrast was excellent between the red and white, however they weren't straight or regularly shaped. Long story short I couldn't live with it when I had a better solution in mind haha:
So I touched the suit up with the same red paint to hide the masking, the edges are still a little visible but only really if you look at them in the right light. I also used this stage to touch up the helmet stripes to get them as neat as I could by hand, very difficult work as you can imagine, especially I wouldn't say I have the steadiest of hands but overall I was happy with them:
I also took the decision to paint the face and and lining of the helmet (even though I fully intend to permanently cover it with a visor):
Next up I went for the suit logos. Now, because the model has been chopped and changed and it's quite hard to find exact logos and sizes etc I made a sheet (standard printer A4 paper) with loads of different sizes for the suit and helmet logos, I used some best estimates and then my plan was to use whichever combo I decided looked best:
I won't post individual photos after every decal, so I'll post just post the below. The way I stuck the decals on was just to use regular transparent drying PVA glue as a paste. This was used to make the A4 paper logos flexible enough to follow the contours of the body without damaging the ink as it's a non-solvent based glue. I then pasted over them to seal them onto the body. I'll be honest, this actually turned out really well. I was super happy with how neat they looked, definitely the far better option than my initial idea:
After this I moved onto the helmet stickers, this was a little bit more difficult as the curvature of the helmet meant it was harder to get the stickers to stay attached without using more glue, which although it leaves the ink ok, damages the integrity of the paper so you only get a couple of chances to move it before it'll rip. Anyway I also decided to try and do the eyes with hilarious results. As you can see below they are truly truly horrifyingly awful
And then the helmet logos. (Note the nacional logo will be touched up):
And after touching up:
And next my plan for the visor. Now I originally had a visor for it but somehow I've managed to lose it, quite inconvenient as it's so awkwardly shaped. What I did was to use the visor from the original massive model as a template. I pushed some A4 paper into the inside of it and traced it, this would allow me to get the scale correct and
in particular translate the curvature from a 2d to a 3d surface accurately. So I traced the large visor, measured key points and dimensions and scaled it down using graph paper. Proper old school pen and paper reverse engineering. I'm expecting the call from Aston Martin to work on the 2022 car any day now to be honest.
Came out with the following template:
Which I then transferred onto some plastic packaging and cut to shape:
This was then covered with a a PVA/silver paint mix to give a translucent semi-reflective surface:
And peeled off and trimmed again, you can see here the translucent effect I was going for:
And this was then superglued onto the helmet, shown here with the steering wheel as I was using it to assemble the car model concurrently, this was actually quite hard as I had to find a wat to hold the visor in place without getting any glue leaking onto my fingers. Even the tiniest amount of glue could've ruined the finish on the helmet:
And that's it for today guys. Next update will be covering some of the finishing of the car, there was more to it than I anticipated so I'll break it down.
Thanks for reading as usual.
Cheers,
Alex.
