With the base color protected we can now go about laying our graphics out; for this I use eight-inch fine line tape. Should you decide to change the layout no harm done just pull the fine line tape up and reposition it. There are custom painters who use an intercoat clear like SG-100 to protect the base color but I personally have seen it create more problems than its worth and so use a two part clear, clear coat with a catalyst added. To keep the graphics even or the same side to side I measure off the vents and the edge of the visor opening. Using reference points such as vents, visor opening makes laying the graphics out easy once you get used to it. I have several small plastic rules about 6 inch’s long that bend easy and conform to the curve of the helmet nicely which makes measuring from these reference points easy. Simply do your measuring at the same spot on each reference point side to side on the helmet and use a pencil to mark reference points to lay your fine line tape out. Make sure you ease all the pencil marks before starting to apply paint.
I like my graphics to flow with the helmet and try and match the angels created by air vents or other features of the helmet design. You’ll notice this helmet has a small raised line that goes from the front of the helmet to the back, getting bigger as it goes back. Things like this I try my best to incorporate into my graphic design as you can see in this picture. In this case I’ll use that raised line to be the breaking point from one color to the next. With the graphics laid out in fine line tape I mask off the areas I do not want to get over spray into with 3M two inch masking tape. Clean the exposed areas I where will be applying paint with a wa- ter based pre cleaner, tack them off and we’re ready to add some color.
The first color we’ll use is base white this will result in giving us a much brighter final color, which in this case will be yellow. To apply the paint I use a mini spray gun rather than an airbrush; in large areas such as this it’s easier to apply a nice even wet coat with the mini spray gun then an airbrush. Many times when try- ing to cover a large area like this with an airbrush we’ll end up with a very grainy looking finish coat, not cool. If I applied the yellow over the base blue we would end up with a very dull looking yellow unless of course we applied a great deal of paint. As when painting anything the less paint you use generally the better the finished product. In this case we want to avoid using a lot of color as it builds up along our tape edges, which we’ll have to deal with later to get a nice finish on the helmet after clear coating. I’m going to change the graphics from what you see on the kart just a little by adding a white pin stripe around them. This will help dress the helmet design up a bit and gives me a chance to show those who have never pin striped with this technique how it’s done.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32