The mask is off!

Well today is the day. I'm done painting blue on the monocoque. It's time to remove the masking tape and see how I did. I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone with experience in modelling that the paint job is perhaps the most tedious, most time consuming and most important part of any model. You can spend a year recreating an engine so exact that you could actually fire it up, but if the body of the car doesn't shine, nobody will take a second look under the hood.

Here it is, the Scotch tape is off. Unfortunately it left some nasty adhesive on the car. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with my limited resources to cut this stuff


And now with the masking tape off...






So time for some self critique. I got some overspray on the car here. That's my mistake, and I think I can clean it up pretty well. Doesn't bother me too much as it's been a long time since I've done this.


But this is troubling. Paint wicked under the mask here. On this kit it's no problem, as a red decal will cover that area. It bothers me though, because if I've got another two color kit coming up without a decal in a position like this, Tamiya mask isn't going to cut it.


Here again, paint wicked under the masking tape. Apparently, I need to work on my technique or try a different masking material


Looks like the contours are right on


Here are the other components painted blue. Some like the mirrors and chimneys still need to be painted on the other side. The undertray still needs to be masked and painted black. Notice the blue paint on the rear wings. I decided to mask this, as I never liked covering anything with a white decal just to make the painting easier.


The undersides of the rear wings, oddly enough, the paint did NOT wick here. I wonder what I did differently?


All in all, I'm going to declare this a success, but I need some time to think how I'm going to cut the left over scotch tape adhesive from the white paint.

Total: 65 h