Factory-painted Ascender paint mod

[durok]

Have a RTR rig and tired of the look? Is it already all scratched up?

Below is a scuffed-up factory-painted K10 Ascender, with the yellow factory paint backed with 10yr-old Pactra (brushed) black, hood painted black (10yr-old Pactra spray) and decals added and a final overcoat of (newly-purchased Tamiya PS55 spray) matte clear (after a quick-and-dirty exterior mask of front & back windows). Ideally I would have masked the inside of the windows when I painted the black, but it's a beater body and I just went with the "Limo tint" look... (I'm a lazy bastard, excuses, excuses)

Grille cut out and replaced with metal mesh - Shoe-Goo'd around the edges...

Wheels painted with 10yr-old Testors enamel using a brush - they've been scuffed to the point of almost removing the chrome completely with a scotchbrite pad (as are the aluminum bed panels, although they were painted right after purchase - rig hasn't been run since the other paintwork).

I greatly prefer it to the "new" look... of course, I'll be buying a new body later to allow a (hopefully!) better job of realism and personal color choice

This body was really looking like death-warmed-over from all the rollovers in the rocky terrain I run in, and when you pair the shiny clear lexan over bright color paint from the underside, all the gouges really stood out. I figure the matte clear will do a better job of protecting it, and it definitely filled existing scrapes and did wonders for the realism - (damn, I so wish I'd managed to mask the windows, but feck it...):



From the side pic below as well as in the above pics, you can see that what was not fixable - scratches in the factory-applied external window and rocker-panel trim decals - I imagine if I had to do it all over again, I'd shoot the brand-new RTR body in matte clear after masking all windows and applying any additional graphics/decals from the outside, and masking the inside of the windows before spraying the underside black. Also - using spray cans is better than brushed-on paint, but I have a shoebox full of extremely old lexan and other modelling paints - all I have left from my old R/C and model-building days. Most are dried up!

As I go and run this some more, it's gonna get beat up again, but that just adds character - and the scratches should look more "real" than they did on the clear lexan and on the decals...

[Shinchu]

Nice!
Hey at least you dont need interior now hahaha

And dont tell me your 10 year old spray cans are dunzo... i just found my 10 year old box from my drifter days in japan!
I have brush paints too. Mostly tamiya and mr hobby.

Anyway, yeah it really does look great! Maybe mask off half circles on the windshield, then spray matte clear again for wiper effect? I always wanted to try that.

[durok]

I'd try that if I had little wiper blades - either plastic or even decals...

Not on this one, tho'

I've had that idea, myself - when I get a new body I'll probably look up Google images of muddy Chevy/GMC trucks of the era and look for the pattern of factory wipers.

Gonna mask side windows next time as well... but this time was just a quick fix, didn't want to deal with curves and whatnot...

Planning to always use matte clear on the outside of any offroad vehicle I do in the future.


(edit: screw interiors, I'm just not one of those guys)

[mewalsh100]

That brought it up nicely!

[JDM74]

I hated the stock K10 Ascender body. There is no way somebody would be rock crawling a 72 Chevy in that good of shape. I have a guy that paints bodies for me because I hate it. I told him what I wanted, mainly for it to look old and not have 20 coats of clear on it. I told him to mat clear the outside. I think it turned out sweet. The rust in on the inside and the outside for a 3D look.

Untitled by JASON MCKIMMEY, on Flickr

[durok]

If mine wasn't the original yellow RTR body, I'd be certainly using a more vintage color...I really like your two-tone job, and the rust came out excellent!

RPP did a body in military green with a blackout grille that looks pretty good, still needs to be beat up. Mine will get beat up again, soon!




And then there's the Freqeskins wraps, but I'd rather not use those (they sure can look great, but it's a "cheat" - IMHO):