Door gaps painting

[youpey]

I have never painted the gaps in the doors/trunk area to show the tiny gaps. Do people typically paint it before or after the primer or even after the paint/clear?

 

I am doing a car that is a very light blue and i dont want the gaps to look over done and fake. Any tips would be greatly appreciated 

[Plowboy]

The best way to make panel lines more realistic looking is to scribe them deeper. To me, nothing looks worse than black washed panel lines.

If you want to paint them, I would suggest doing it before paint with a mixture of the body color and black.

[youpey]

10 minutes ago, Plowboy said:

The best way to make panel lines more realistic looking is to scribe them deeper. To me, nothing looks worse than black washed panel lines.

If you want to paint them, I would suggest doing it before paint with a mixture of the body color and black.

thank you. i think what i will do is paint a test model the same color and do one side before and one side after and see how it looks. i just found someone on youtube about panel lines with tamiya panel line paint and it looked pretty good on video. i just want to make sure it looks good with light paint. i suspect it will look silly and unrealistic with light paint 

[Rodent]

Maybe the grey would be better than black on a blue car?

[StevenGuthmiller]

This question pops up quite frequently.

There are a number of ways to tackle the issue.

I have tried darkening the panel lines before paint as mentioned above, but have had no luck with this technique, probably due to the fact that I use multiple coats of automotive type lacquers which can be very opaque and will cover up the color in the panel lines very quickly.

Deepening the panel lines by scribing is a technique that I will try in the near future, but it will remain to be seen whether it will produce the desired affect with the paint regimen that I use.

For quite some time, I have been darkening the panel lines at the final stages of the build with acrylic craft paint with fairly good results.

Not the optimum solution I suppose, but it works pretty well in most instances.

I agree to an extent that black looks too stark on a lighter colored car, but I believe this has much more to do with the width of the panel line, and less to do with using black to do them.

You frequently will hear the argument that black looks out of place, but if you look at the panel lines on the average 1:1 car, you will see nothing but black in the recesses, but the lines are very thin making them look as you would expect.

In any event, I usually will use a darker shade of the body color to mitigate the starkness of the panel lines.

 

But again, all panel lines are black.

It's just that most models have too wide of a gap between panels for black to look correct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve

 

 

[TransAmMike]

31 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

This question pops up quite frequently.

There are a number of ways to tackle the issue.

I have tried darkening the panel lines before paint as mentioned above, but have had no luck with this technique, probably due to the fact that I use multiple coats of automotive type lacquers which can be very opaque and will cover up the color in the panel lines very quickly.

Deepening the panel lines by scribing is a technique that I will try in the near future, but it will remain to be seen whether it will produce the desired affect with the paint regimen that I use.

For quite some time, I have been darkening the panel lines at the final stages of the build with acrylic craft paint with fairly good results.

Not the optimum solution I suppose, but it works pretty well in most instances.

I agree to an extent that black looks too stark on a lighter colored car, but I believe this has much more to do with the width of the panel line, and less to do with using black to do them.

You frequently will hear the argument that black looks out of place, but if you look at the panel lines on the average 1:1 car, you will see nothing but black in the recesses, but the lines are very thin making them look as you would expect.

In any event, I usually will use a darker shade of the body color to mitigate the starkness of the panel lines.

 

But again, all panel lines are black.

It's just that most models have too wide of a gap between panels for black to look correct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The panel lines on the 4-4-2 look perfect Steve, especially when comparing them with the real one pictured but which technique was actually used on it?

[Snake45]

I always scribe my door/trunk lines about 2/3 of the way through the plastic, then flow flat black paint in there. And then I prime, paint, and polish normally and don't do another thing to the panel lines until I wash the final polish out of them with a toothbrush and warm running water. I'm very happy with the results I get with this method. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Snake45

[StevenGuthmiller]

17 minutes ago, TransAmMike said:

The panel lines on the 4-4-2 look perfect Steve, especially when comparing them with the real one pictured but which technique was actually used on it?

In this case, a dark brown wash of acrylic craft paint was flowed into the panel lines and then cleaned up around the edges.

 

That is another recommendation that I can offer.

If you do use a wash at the end, it's a good practice to not just wipe the surface clean, but to try to clean at least a little way down into the panel line to expose the door and fender edges a little bit.

Not always easy to do depending on the depth of the line, but it will help make the line appear "less heavy".

 

 

 

 

 

Steve

[TransAmMike]

5 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

In this case, a dark brown wash of acrylic craft paint was flowed into the panel lines and then cleaned up around the edges.

 

That is another recommendation that I can offer.

If you do use a wash at the end, it's a good practice to not just wipe the surface clean, but to try to clean at least a little way down into the panel line to expose the door and fender edges a little bit.

Not always easy to do depending on the depth of the line, but it will help make the line appear "less heavy".

 

 

 

 

 

Steve

And I assume this is done before clearing right?

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, TransAmMike said:

And I assume this is done before clearing right?

 I suppose that you could do it then if you prefer, but then the type of paint you use would have to be considered.

I use automotive clear lacquer on my projects.

Spraying acrylic lacquer over acrylic craft paint would probably not be advisable.

 

I do the panel lines as one of the final steps before assembly.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[TransAmMike]

3 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

 I suppose that you could do it then if you prefer, but then the type of paint you use would have to be considered.

I use automotive clear lacquer on my projects.

Spraying acrylic lacquer over acrylic craft paint would probably not be advisable.

 

I do the panel lines as one of the final steps before assembly.

 

 

 

 

Steve

I use the Rusto acrylic laquer clear over my craft paint jobs.

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, TransAmMike said:

I use the Rusto acrylic laquer clear over my craft paint jobs.

Well, if it works for you, go for it.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[espo]

Lately I have used the Tamiya Panel Line Accent product to define the body gapes.  I'll use this between the final color coats of paint but before applying the clear coat. I have used both their black and the gray and they offer a few other colors. This has worked well for the most part but in some cases it looks out of scale or to dark and unrealistic. What I'm going to try on my next build is to use the body color with a little black paint mixed in or even a darker shade of what ever color I'm using. 

[Steamboat]

I like to use a wash consisting of ground up black chalk, water and a drop of dish soap. It flows nicely into the panel lines and the excess can be wiped away when dry.

I also use it for grilles, it works beautifully. 

On this model, it was used for the door gaps, and a mix of red, black and yellow was used for the rust around the lug nuts.

[youpey]

4 hours ago, Steamboat said:

I like to use a wash consisting of ground up black chalk, water and a drop of dish soap. It flows nicely into the panel lines and the excess can be wiped away when dry.

I also use it for grilles, it works beautifully. 

On this model, it was used for the door gaps, and a mix of red, black and yellow was used for the rust around the lug nuts.

i am not sure how to ask this, but how much chalk/water do you use? is it a lot of chalk to a little water?

[Steamboat]

37 minutes ago, youpey said:

i am not sure how to ask this, but how much chalk/water do you use? is it a lot of chalk to a little water?

 I use a 1 oz. medicine cup with about 2 drops of water. I guess a "pinch" of chalk would be the right amount. The chalk settles to the bottom so you need to tilt the cup a little to get some on your brush.  Play around with it a little and you'll find the right amount. 

The neat thing is you can let the water dry out and store the cup with the chalk after use.  I've got a stack of them with different colors.  I just add a drop or two of water and I'm back in business. 

For lighter colored models, you can make it a bit more gray and add a little colored chalk that is close to the body color. 

[PappyD340]

I always darken my panel lines with either Tamiya panel liner or The Detailer model washes after I wet sand the primer clean up any access and let dry before paint.