Hi,
Newbie question here. I have a few Tamiya F1 kits, and a couple have the body molded in a color that I think looks great. My thought is to leave it unpainted, and clear coat it after applying decals. My thought is that would provide some of the finer details, such as rivets, to show up better.
The only reason I can think of to paint, is to get a glossier finish, but my thought is that the clear will accomplish this.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ray
Bump for a first-time poster.
The only reason i could think of to paint it is to lose the look of plastic, if that makes sense. But then seeing as this is an F1 car, which i am guessing are made of carbon fibre or some other composite, then maybe the plastic look might not be to much of a problem. You might want to clear coat it before the decals to help them settle down better.
Styrene is not very opaque. It is quite translucent. Most surfaces of a prototype you will be modeling will be very opaque, so you need that opaque look. Sometimes a clearcoat will reduce the translucent appearance, but a color coat does a better job.
I would only leave a part unpainted if that part on the prototype were translucent, and not very many parts are.
You probably have some mars in the plastic finish from cutting the parts from the sprue and sanding edges. Painting would cover these up.
Yeah, I agree with everyone else. NOT-painting is just “not finishing” a model. Bare plastic is for kids. Paint the model and you’ll see the difference.
Sometimes you can get away with. For example, I used no paint at all on this car model, everthing you see is the color it was oiut of the box. No polish, either.
This is an old Jo-Han kit from the 60’s or 70’s, recently found in the stash of a departed relative.
The young lady is a prepainted steel casting, which I found at a LHS and she cost a lot more than the car model!
HI
The only time I recommended NOT painting , was when my class of seniors was building their first model . That was because where we met ,you could NOT spray anything there .I told them if they wanted to paint them take them home and do it there .
A few did NOT paint them . They were the OLD old , MONOGRAM fifties CHEVIES . They polished up nice in bare plastic , but , I go for the painted look . Paint seems to say , " okay , I’m finished " There have been a few times I did not paint a model as in the 1934 MERCEDES with " BODY by SINDELFINGEN " that was put out ,I believe by JO-HAN . It was molded in a very rich and deep burgundy that I could NOT match right away with paint .I built it between at sea deployments .
I tell folks today , "Paint that model , you’ll be glad you did " Tankerbuilder
I’d try the clear coat first. Make sure the piece is clean and clear of any seams, sprue nubs, etc. I’ve seen many car kits done this way and they look amazing. Future is very forgiving - it self-levels nicely, and, if you don’t like the results, it’s easily stripped off with windex, after which you can give painting it a shot.
Space saved for photo.
I built a Monogram Challenger around 30 years ago and didn’t paint it. I did however use a gloss coat and you know it didn’t come out half bad. I still have that model to this day. How its survived is a mystery to me. I have a couple of minor repairs to do but not anything major. When I get back home from Oklahoma I’ll post a couple of pictures.
Hello , Mustang1989 - I gotta ask - Is that aircraft in the picture a FOUGA MAGISTER ? Leastwise I think it looks like one .I could be wrong … Tanker-builder
I asked a similar question once and Fine Scale Modeler told me it’s up to me what I do. I prefer Future because it’s simple and effective. I do not enter contests or send pics of my models to magazines. My only “audience” is me. Try the Future first. If you like it, stick with it. If not, you can strip it off with Windex and then paint your model. Feel free to find what works for you and don’t let anyone peer pressure you with statements like “bare plastic is for kids”. Unless they’re hiring you to build a model for them, they have no dog in the fight. You do you.