Mustang GT 350 H - Finalizing the Painting

Progress has been getting along, albeit slowly. Finding the motivation to work on models is coming back slowly. Having said that, some progress has been made. Once the black was sprayed on the bodywork. I waited till that was dry and applied the metallic black coat. The metallic is a thinner coat so requires the gloss black as a base coat. The gold stripe decals were added using softener fluid and a hairdryer to make sure they covered perfectly. Trouble is i should of sanded the black gloss coat a little smoother as some parts of the decals had a little 'ripple' effect due to the coats below. Although nothing to be noticed too much but a lesson to learn for future decals. Once the decals were dry and fixed, the car received it's Diamond Gloss coat, then a great sanding and polishing finished with a wax using Zero Paints polishing wax to finish off an amazing paint job. 

The metallic shine really shows up and finishes off the colour. 

The hood had clips which were not part of the kit, so I cut the tip of two cocktail sticks off and used scale cabling to form the rings and wires. I painted them chrome before fitting but they will need another coat to finish off the glossy chrome look. I left the clips to dry before folding the wires under the hood. 

The chrome parts were easily painted with a primer and base coat of black and then a couple of spray coats of the World's Mirrorest Mirror Paint and they turned out great as always. This paint is amazing for chrome although fairly expensive. I don't think I will use anything else for chrome. 

A few chrome parts needed a little extra work, for example the rear light cluster needed a dab of clear red paint for the lights. Painting it onto the chrome really gives it a glassy shine. 

As you can see, these look great! I can't wait to see them on the finished model. The grille needed a little extra too. So I coated it with some black wash that filtered into the ridges, making the depths go black and giving the grille that extra realism.

Lastly the wheels needed a little extra. The called for a black centre so I tried to paint black paint in there, however I feel black wash would of worked batter as I had to reapply chrome on the black paint that was over painted. However, with tyres and the centre decal applied applied, I feel they look amazing. 

That's it for now, These details took a good couple of hours but will look fantastic when applied to the model. I still have details to work on but those are for next time. 

Thanks for checking in, hope you keep coming back. 

Progress of the Hertz Mustang

 Recently, I have had some mental health issues. When that happens, I have to take a step back from nearly everything to concentrate on getting my self better. Some times, depending on the severity, that can mean a few weeks even a month of tough mental struggle. During this period I am unable to do most of the things I enjoy, so my model making took a back seat. 

Before this happened, however, I had managed to work on the interior and engine of the Mustang. Once put together the interior was looking amazing. With the new chrome paint accents and black carpeting, it was looking very realistic. 

Some of the decals were incredibly tiny yet, I'm sure you will agree, look amazing once the interior was put together. 

Next, was the engine. This will be the first car I have built that the bonnet (hood) can actually be opened and the detailed engine can be seen. The F40 had a visible engine but not a lot of the engine was visible, just the top. The Mustang, however, has a very detailed engine.  It was mostly painted in metallic silver such as aluminium and manifold colours. The main block was coated with blue ink to give it a metallic blue hue as intended, rather than a simple gloss blue. I feel it looks a lot like a Hammerite blue and I just love this look. Rocker covers were black with silver dry brushed over to pick out the lines and the 'Cobra' lettering. 

The exhaust manifolds were rather interesting to paint. They called for merely a metallic silver type paint but I thought it would be cool to paint these as if they were heat coloured. Metal changes colour when heated and often is left with a blue hue due to continuous heating and this would be great to paint on the exhaust manifolds. 

I looked around on the internet and found a Youtube video on how to paint heat scorched metal from RobPaintsModels channel. 

Rob utilized manifold paints, gold paint and Blue and Purple inks to provide an amazing look. My manifolds were slightly different. I decided the heat would be at it's hottest where the manifolds joined and thus the colours would extend out in both directions from that point rather than ending at one end, how Rob painted his exhausts. My manifolds were also much smaller and thus I had to tweek and play with the settings on my airbrush. Once painted and glued, the engine was starting to look amazing. 

There is still work to do with the engine, I am hoping to put in ignition cables and such to increase the detail even further. The air filter will be added later in the build process. Overall I am very happy with the result so far especially those coloured manifolds. 

Prior to my mental health issue, I had tried to paint the main bodywork with the base coat of gloss black. However, during the Twitch Stream I had difficulties mixing and spraying the paint properly, which lead to a bad coating of paintwork. Therefore, once it was dry I sanded back the bad parts of the paintwork and once I was back on my feet, I repainted the base coat. 

Once the base coat was dry I finished it off with a metallic coat. There are still parts of the paintwork that were not as high a quality as I would of liked, but overall, considering the issues I had, it wasn't bad. Hopefully the metallic shine will show through a little more once the gloss coat has been added but the decals come before that. 

So prior to that step, the paintwork is complete for now. 

Once the gloss coat is added, the paintwork should really 'pop'! That was the latest update for now. After my mental heath issues I am glad to be back and building once more and very pleased with what I have accomplished so far. I can't wait to see how this build turns out.