Multipass Tutorial - Step 15

In this step, we prep the body for painting, primer, then paint.

Note that there are a million ways to get these steps done. You don't have to do it my way. If you have a painting technique that you prefer, please don't feel compelled to use my methods. I'm just showing what has worked for me in the past. If you have a way of getting better results, please send me a note and tell me how to improve my tutorial.

Start off with the pass body, two popsicle sticks, and some painters tape.

Tape the popsicle sticks to the body. Nothing fancy. I'm not even worried about what I'm masking off. The point of the tape is to hold the sticks on, not really to mask anything off. The sticks will be used to hold the pass while spraying and drying. Nothing more.

This is the primer I recommend. You can get it at almost any auto parts store.

This shows the pass with the first coat of primer on it. I'm actually making this tutorial a TAD out of order, and I sprayed it with a black sandable primer before I found my gray sandable primer that you see in the photo above. I prefer the gray, as it matches with the top color better. That way,if some paint accidentally chips off, you'll see gray primer instead of black.

And here is the paint I recommend. Also a Dupli-Color paint, available at any good auto parts store. I'm sure you can get it on Amazon.com if you look.

Here's the exact part number. I don't know if this is EXACTLY what they used in the film, but it matches up nicely to frame grabs. It actually matches REALLY well, and I'm quite happy with it. If you find a paint that you think works better, please let me know.

I use a clamp to hold the pass while it is drying. This way, I don't have to sit it down on a flat surface. See how magical that popsicle stick is??

I let it sit overnight. Your mileage may vary. Because I'm going to be sanding the paint, I like to give it an opportunity to dry thoroughly.

Here's how it looks with the tape and popsicle stick removed. You can see there are some pretty serious ridges where the paint pooled up around the edges of the tape.

To remedy this, I take my 220 grit sand paper and go to town.

Here you can see where I've smoothed things down.

From this picture you can see that I've also made sure the lip of the center plate is white, as are the little tabs along the top and bottom.