STi Project

well this started out as a how to paint your car the correct way tutorial, after i got sick of seeing people ruining their xmods with crap paint jobs lol. but then when i went to post it noticed bondo had already posted one. go figure haha. but now im gonna take a drastic change on this car, and build a xmods rally car. So... this is it.


started out as a normal, brand new mint STi shell with a few body kit pieces.
(realdrive chassis)








i was tired of the factory flawed mis-colored bumpers and spoiler. So it was time to do something about it!


started by removing the body




removed all the hot glue holding the attena to the shell and the lights in, and set the chassis aside.




strip it of all body parts, and lenses.






masked off the windows.












i stole the scoop off the stock hood from one of my other subys since its using the CF hood. and gonna use it for a roof scoop, rally style and of course sanded everything down.






washed everything with nice hot soapy water to get all the dust off it and got it all prepped for paint.







little tip for painting small parts. stick them to a piece of tape. sometimes the pressure from the paint will push them aroudn or something. this keeps them from doing that, and also allows you to easily manuver them around with the small box so you can paint from different angles, or pick up and store somewhere else, and not have to worry about messing up the paint.





First coat. (tip) always spray the first coat as light as possible, just barley dust it. this will set up a better surface for the paint to stick too, so you dont get the crappy bubbles, dips, drips, and orange peal of just slapping it on thick. if it starts to get runny or bubbly, kinda a liquid pool of paint, your to thick, stop there.










this is the third coat of paint. (another tip, do SUPER light coats.)











after i got complete coverage, (8-9 coats later) i sprayed it an acrylic clear. smooths things out, fills in any small imperfections. Using a proper paint though, i would not use this. the paint i used was less than desirable for xmods. so it needed some extra help.







now while this looks done its not. just temporarly.

1st. i didnt get all my masking very well, so some of the edges are a little ruff. i will be cleaning those up.

2nd. i wanted a pearl white, but there wasnt any available around my town and i didnt feel like ordering it at the time. so i tried an effect that didnt turn out. So you will see on the main body its a little bit of a off white, or might notice some dark specs, and its not very glossy. and i ran out of white, so i couldnt redo it. So my appologies for that. i will be ordering the correct color soon, and redoing this car, using the paint thats on it now, basically as a primer.

3rd. i will be doing some black on the front bumper so make it look more realistic

4th. the most popular mod on a subaru is to paint the plastic inside the head lamp housin, so ill be doing that as well.

5th. overal clean up the car so things fit better. the rear bumper and spoiler are not fitting the best right now, so ill be fixing that.

so here it is for now...










so thats how a paintjob should look. Flat, smooth, nice and glossy, no runs or bumps or bubbles, no orange peal. a smooth glossy nicely laid paint job. this was all done with rattle cans! held approx 8-10 inches away done in VERY light coats!

so next time your wanting to paint your car. take your time. do it right, and follow bondos tutorial, or ask me for questions. not rushing it is the key! thanks for looking, just wait till i get the correct paint, it will look MUCH better. along with a few other goodies

[HUMMER H4]

Nice,Simple and easy.. A++

[4G63punk]

Nice job. But that roof scoop is a little to big.

yeah little bit. but im to lazy to make one. so it'll work. i might end up scrapin it. i cant decide if i want to turn this one into a rally car or not yet.

if it wasnt so tall, it would be perfect.

[Donziikid]

Needs better pictures. The high ISO makes it look like there are a few paint imperfections..

[bosco72]

what car is that .it's not a xmod.are they fast

[fiberworkz]

I don't really like that color on the STi but the quality looks very good!

Originally Posted by bosco72

what car is that .it's not a xmod.are they fast

It is a Realdrive and no they aren't fast.

[xmodkidd33]

Really nice, maybe add another coat of gloss clear and shine 'er up for some more shine.

ill state this again.

i tried a paint affect to give the plain white a pearl to it, and it messed up the paint on the car body (i didnt even both on the other pieces, so its miss colored now)

so in the crappy lighting conditions of my work area, and the crappy color the paint turned out, it doesnt look right.

i AM repainting it, using the correct color i wanted to begin with, and using this paint job as sort of a primer stage. and none of that acrylic crap, ive found it kinda dulls the paint after it drys. its not a real clear coat, so it doesnt make it shine. i suggest NOT using it. using the proper paint to begin with will end with a great shine.

so it will turn out to be a lot more glossy, and a lot prettyier white after it gets its next color sprayed.

ill also take it out side to get some good day light pictures at that time.



this is known as a "fake" xmod. its made by realdrive. the bodys are identical, you can even use xmod body kits with them. but they use a very cheap non upgradeable chassis. they are just as fast as a stock xmod, but turn way better! stock for stock, real drive is better in my opinion. but of course you cant get things like awd, suspension upgrades, motors and all the goodies of xmods. if there was more room under the chassis, i would think about adding an extra cell to see how well it performed, but not enough room.


main point i wanted to get with this thread, is not opinions on the crappy color that turned out. but how well the paintjob was layed out.
90% of the paint jobs i see on here, are not flat, they have a textured paint/orange peal effect cuz they were not done properly. so i wanted to help people get those flat paint jobs that look how they should.

here i got some good pictures.












as you can see the acrylic really dulled things down.

and you will notice the dark specs threw out the car body. thats the failed attempt at a pearl paint. kinda makes the paint look dirty now in the pictures.

but as you can see, everything is super smooth and flat, and no runs drips or bubbles or textures. which is what matters to me more than a glossy paint job. Flat colors are in now days anyways

wait till i redo it, will look much better.

[taiwanesekid05]

Lol, Realdrive Mini.

Nice tut Looks like a bit of orange peel, but must be the camera as Donzii said.

Originally Posted by chinesekid05

Lol, Realdrive Mini.

Nice tut Looks like a bit of orange peel, but must be the camera as Donzii said.

its not orange peal. nor the camera...

as ive said its the the dark speckles of silver that were suppose to be a pearl, but it didnt turn out. and since it went flat after the acrylic dryed for a while, it just looks like crap.

[Donziikid]

Looks like not a dark enough coat got put onto the inside of the wing as well as judging by this image the body is more of a grey while the bodykit pieces are more of a off white.

Looks good. The second coat of the correct color should look amazing.

[taiwanesekid05]

Originally Posted by SPR

its not orange peal. nor the camera...

as ive said its the the dark speckles of silver that were suppose to be a pearl, but it didnt turn out. and since it went flat after the acrylic dryed for a while, it just looks like crap.

Oh ok... I skimmed, not read the tread.

[irockid86]

nice job with both the paint and the write up. i recently painted my real car, and the local paint guy recomended that i use adhesion premoter for any plastic parts. would adhesion premoter help with painting rc car bodies? just an idea.

[bigez]

i think that that car looks good nice job

[BulletsRain]

I'll try this next time I paint a body. Thanks
And yes, its looks better than how most cars turn out.

Originally Posted by Donziikid

Looks like not a dark enough coat got put onto the inside of the wing as well as judging by this image the body is more of a grey while the bodykit pieces are more of a off white.

Looks good. The second coat of the correct color should look amazing.

your right about the wing. i totally missed that! ill be sure to get it next time around thanks.

the body looks more grey cuz the silver that was suppose to be a pearl didnt turn out how it should have. and then after it went flat, it pretty much turned to a grey, and i didnt put any of that on the body kit pieces or hood. which is what i ment by its off colored now.

but this set up as the perfect primer. sand it down just a little bit to get a better surface, and then it wont take much of the correct white paint to cover since its starting as a white base, it will turn out great. im also going to ditch the front and rear bumper thats on it now and do something different.

[amorton94]

ahh! what's with the gun on the table??!! are you a murderer/robber? lol jk looks like a nice paint job

[skim4food]

dude i kinda like that paint like that personally, makes it look more realistic and sooo clean, awesome job!