Managed to make some progress on the Lotus. The last couple of weeks, I'd been working on painting and decalling the monococque. In my last post I had managed to get it primered and start placing the bare metal foil to simulate the rivets. The next step after that was to paint it.
I applied a couple layers of Testors Gloss Black enamel. Because of the tooling process Lotus used to lay up the chassis, the monocoque is finished in a rough carbon fiber. I tried to manipulate the airbrush in such that the paint would create some texture to simulate the effect.
Once the enamel had dried enought that I could handle it, I took some Tamiya cotton swabs dipped in enamel thinner and began rubbing the gloss black off the raised rivet details. Overall, I was happy with the way it came out. Some parts where the Bare Metal Foil was wrinkled up became exposed, but it's very minor. I'll probably just touch it up during final assembly and inspection.
I had originally planned to use aftermarket decals, but my impatience got the better of me and I went with the decals from my original issue Lotus. However, I had forgotten how thick Tamiya decals are. I spent the next week and a half using Micro-Sol to try and eliminate the decal film, but with little luck.
Eventually, I decided the Micro-Sol had at least thinned enough of the decal that the clearcoat would eliminate it. I sprayed on three coats of Testors Lusterless (Flat) Cote. It managed to eliminate most of the film edge. It's noticeable at some angles, but for the most part, I'm please with the result. I'm trying not to let the "perfect be the enemy of the good" as it were.
Another angle. With the flat clearcoat, you can see how the raised rivet really stand outs. Another benefit of using Bare Metal Foil is that it's raised, simulating the areas where the carbon fiber was laid over the chassis' bulkheads.
I also added primer/sealer to some other body parts, such as the front and rear wings, and the monococque sides. I'll be wet sanding those in preparation for another coat of primer/sealer, and hopefully color coats before the end of the month.
Excellent work, one of the best versions I have seen if this car done.
ReplyDeleteGreat work, looks really nice, but did you ever finish this?
ReplyDeleteI'm a beginner at modelling and wanted to do the 99T as my next project. So I've been searching online for others making this as a reference. Only problem is everyone I've found have been adding detail kits, as a beginner I wanted to make it just out of the box, so I wanted to see how it looks vanilla.
So if you finished it I'd be really interested to see how it turned out.