Freeze's Savage Flux "Frostbyte II" build thread

[JERRY2KONE]

Nice work and thanks for sharing all of your step by step on the body painting as we all know how hard this task can be. I recently tried painting my first lexan clear body and it did not turn out so nice. I lack the patients required to get a really nice finish, and ended up with a grade school looking truck body. I get bored to easily with tasks like that now in my more advanced age. Looking at your results may help me attack another body and take a little bit more time doing the actual prep and taping. Nice job and very nice truck. Hope your play time turns out the way you envision it. Keep up the good work Freeze.

[reno911]

Love it. Very cold looking.

[_dV]

Nice work, I do prefer the simpler paint jobs.

I used Tamiya PS-31 Smoke to tint the windows on my Gigante body and it worked well except i probably only needed one coat instead of two as it's a bit dark. It doesn't look very dark after painting but once its mounted on the truck it's much darker.

[Jahay]

looks great!!! well done!!!

[Finnster]

Turned out pretty nicely. Looks like you had a good deal of fun with the project. Now we need to see some pix of the truck out in the dirt!

As far as the body prep stuff goes, all looks good, tho I would recommend a liquid mask like Bob Dively's liquid mask. You can just put it on with finges or brush where you would normally tape, and easily is trimmed with an xacto blade. Much easier than tape and much easier to avoid bleed.

This works well for tint if you don't have an airbrush. One other tip for spray cans, which is esp important for translucent tint, is to let the can sit in a bath of hot tap water for a little while before you spray.

The aerosol will heat up, raising the pressure in the can so when you spray you get better atomization. Ie a finer finish to the paint. Not a huge deal on the body (tho helps) but does help with the tint a lot. A cold can will leave bigger droplets of paint, and since you see thru the tint, the graininess is noticible. A hot can and good technique will leave a smooth, consistant finish.

Originally Posted by Finnster

. One other tip for spray cans, which is esp important for translucent tint, is to let the can sit in a bath of hot tap water for a little while before you spray.

The aerosol will heat up, raising the pressure in the can so when you spray you get better atomization. Ie a finer finish to the paint. Not a huge deal on the body (tho helps) but does help with the tint a lot. A cold can will leave bigger droplets of paint, and since you see thru the tint, the graininess is noticible. A hot can and good technique will leave a smooth, consistant finish.

Ironically I just learned the spray can in hot water technique on Friday when I got my newest X-treme RC magazine and just started to paint the body. I was amazed at the difference it made.

[thzero]

Just with the liquid mask make sure you put it on thick enough so that it peels off in larger pieces.

[Finnster]

Originally Posted by thzero

Just with the liquid mask make sure you put it on thick enough so that it peels off in larger pieces.

Yeah, its big pain if its too thin. Too thick and it takes forever to dry and is a big waste.

That's why I tend to just use my fingers now. I used to use a brush to keep things clean, but too easy to get it thin.

I just pour some on and spread it around well and evenly with my fingers all over the areas I'm looking to mask, if not just most of the body.

It cuts very easily too, so you can use a very light hand to do the cutting. Leads to straighter lines and easier shaping. Tape you really have to cut thru.

One trick I learned was to jusy hold the xacto blade just at the very end of the handle and with just your pointer finger and thumb. You just drag the knife where you want it to cut and let it do the work. Much easier to get consistant flowing lines, rather than holding like the knife like a pencil and trying your damnedest to draw a straight line, cut deep enough to get thru the tape, and not so deep you really score the lexan.

Try it with a pencil on just the desk or paper and you'll see what I mean. Works well w/ flame jobs where you have lots of curves and tight turns.
Old way tends to get lots of straight lines and corners where you stop and start.=> \_/
This way you can make one curve and just guid the blade by twisting it a bit. => U

No pro by any means, but just a few tricks I learned from people way more skilled than me that made life easier. You have a nice write up going freeze, so hope you don't mind I throw in my $.02

Originally Posted by Finnster

It cuts very easily too, so you can use a very light hand to do the cutting. Leads to straighter lines and easier shaping. Tape you really have to cut thru.

One trick I learned was to jusy hold the xacto blade just at the very end of the handle and with just your pointer finger and thumb. You just drag the knife where you want it to cut and let it do the work. Much easier to get consistant flowing lines, rather than holding like the knife like a pencil and trying your damnedest to draw a straight line, cut deep enough to get thru the tape, and not so deep you really score the lexan.

Yeah, I cut a little too hard and deep into the body, i'll have to try that suggestion next time.

[Finnster]

Originally Posted by Freezebyte

Yeah, I cut a little too hard and deep into the body, i'll have to try that suggestion next time.

Don't get me wrong, looks good. Just something you pick up.

One of my first tape jobs I did was on a thin body and I nearly cut thru it. You pretty much have to press hard on tape. The LM is much softer and can get away w/ a light touch.

Update: Body changes


With the project wrapping up at long last, I had to settle on my final ideas one way or another. After some research at the LHS, I determined the amount of work needed to tint the bodies windows isn't worth the further expense and time needed to complete it, so that idea was scrapped. I did decide to go ahead and use as much Shoe Goo as possible to help reinforce the likely weak area's on the body I felt that would be subject to cracking under bashing conditons, due to the wide and long nature of the body orginally designed for a Slash, not a MT. It's hard to see the Goo, so I outline the area's were I put it on the body


I also went ahead and put on packing tape on the sides of the body to help prevent the paint from being rubbed off from the battery trays during crashes and heavy landings. A simple but effective idea I felt.

[Bondonutz]

You did a pretty nice and unique paint job Freeze, you should be proud !
Good break down on the methods and explanation also for curious first timers.



The last body I painted I tried the liquid mask for the first time. I applied 3 even coats via a soft 1/2" brush and used a old hair dryer between coats. Worked very well, I will be using the LM from now on for painting anything with more than 2 colors. Doing a simple 2 tone I'll be sticking with tape.

Finn, your spot on describing the usage of a exacto for cutting the lines and designs. I tried several methods and after experimenting I ultimately used the technique you stated and it worked best. I was able to cut smoother, rounder lines.

FINAL STEP: COMPLETION!


What else can I say, but after over a month since I started, "Frostbyte II" is FINALLY done! I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking!


[YOUTUBE]hJ0ATlPbVlo[/YOUTUBE]

[pinkpanda3310]

Great job Freeze! It looks great and looks like it handles well. BTW when did you lease it for it to become unleased?