Tamiya TRF419X Project
Page 2: Paint
Here's the Nissan GT-R Sumo Power body that I got for this model. I
started by trimming the body and test fitting it to the chassis as
shown. Luckily, everything seems to fit perfectly. The
wheelbase and width are just right.
Next I applied the window masks which include the headlights and tail
lights. Since this is a two-tone paint scheme, I had to manually
mask off all the areas that will be white. This was quite a
challenge because many of these lines do not follow body lines but still
need to look smooth and symmetrical. The picture on the right
shows my final masking.
The first couple of paint coats applied were black. The picture on
the left shows the body after the black was painted and the tape
removed. You can see a couple of bleeds but I was able to clean
those up before proceeding to the white. The right hand picture
shows the body after the white was applied and the windows smoked.
I put on many coats of white so I could back them with black and still
look bright. I like the inside to be black to hide the electronics
better.
This model comes with two sticker sheets with over a hundred stickers
including the massive Union Jack that covers the entire roof.
Applying these stickers took forever, but this is one of the best
looking liveries I have ever done. It is so detailed. There
are some wrinkles in the flag on the roof which was just too large to
apply totally smoothly.
Probably the most complex area to decorate was the rear which required
matching the edge lines of many stickers as well as wrapping them down
into the tail light recesses. I think it came out really
well. Note the good looking rear wing as well. The right
hand picture shows some more detail of the side of the car including the
vents over the front wheel arches. It took me a long time to find
some wheels that I was happy with and had the right offset. I
chose these chrome spoked wheels because they seemed to be the best
match for the real car.
Finally I installed some cheap LEDs into the light buckets to add a whole other level of realism. They look great.
©2021 Eric Albrecht
