FREEZ's Advanced Theory of Car Painting

Here's where I rant and rave about what makes a good car. This is basically going to be several paragraphs of me rambling on about what makes a good paint scheme. If you value my opinion, read on. If you already know what you're doing, skip the jibber and get painting. <G>

You know, I've been painting cars for 5 years now, all the way back to the days of the original NASCAR Racing, and I STILL regularly surf around to all the good car sites to see what they're doing. Not out of a sense of competition (I've never felt like I was competing against anyone or anything but my own imagination) but out of curiosity. I want to see what new cool things everyone else is doing. I see a lot of great paint schemes, and I see a lot of HORRIBLE ones as well. There are two major things that almost every good paint scheme has:

1) A good, matching color set
2) Correct placement of the various car elements (numbers, sponsors, decals, etc.)

That's it. If you aren't interested in having those things on your paint schemes, then you're just messing around. Your goal when painting a car should be to create a scheme that looks like it could be on a real Winston Cup race car.

COLOR THEORY

 When I'm putting together an idea for a car, I try to stick to no more than 4 colors. My standard fare is one major bright color, one other contrasting but coordinating color, and some black and/or white to highlight the two colors. Sometimes I only use one bright color and black and white. I always try to use colors that look good together. Here are a few good color combinations:

  • Red - Yellow
  • Black - Blue
  • Blue - White
  • Blue - green
  • Dark Green - white
  • Black - Yellow
  • Sometimes Blue and Yellow
  • Sometimes Yellow and green
Here are a few bad color combinations. You CAN make a car with these colors, but you really have to make it something special to get them to work well together:

  • Yellow - Purple - I get the shakes just thinkin' about it. Only the Vikings seem to be able to pull these colors off.
  • Pink - anything - I don't care if Earnhardt drove a pink car, pink is for Barbies and baby girls, not Race cars. (You hear that Jeffy?? <G>)
  • Orange - Brown - No matter what MTV and feminine fashion nuts say to the contrary, this ain't the '70's.
  • Purple - Green - This one's borderline, but still requires some real creativity to avoid a Barney-mobile.
  • Mixed Pastels - I see more of this crap than I can stand. Light yellow and light green, THIS AIN'T EASTER EGG COLORIN' TIME.. pick some better colors! hehe.
Sports teams are some exceptions to the rules above. If you're a Vikings fan (WOOHOO!) or a Cleveland Browns fan, for example, rules 1 and 3 above don't apply. Also, if the company logo of your sponsor uses a set of colors that I list as nasty, ignore me completely and match the car colors to the logo.

Ok, I'm done ranting about bad color combos. I found my chill-pills. <G> Like I said, I'm not saying you can't make a good car with those colors, but you darn well better have a great idea for it.

As far as colors go, keep it simple. Don't try to do too much or pump too many colors into it. Use contrasting colors that go well together and that either MATCH or COMPLIMENT the colors of your sponsor logo. THEN be creative and about how you use them. Just don't go overboard. There are too many cars like the Studebaker from the Muppet Movie out there already. Hehe

OBJECT PLACEMENT

 When was the last time you saw a Winston Cup car with the number just in front of the rear wheel-well? Or saw one that had no headlights (Ok, the T-Birds 3 or 4 years ago, but that was 3 or 4 years ago). If you're going to paint a Stock car, put the numbers, sponsors, headlights, and decals where you see them on real Stock Cars. If you're not looking that carefully at the paint jobs while watching a race, LOOK CLOSER. You'll never be a good car painter if you don't know where things go. ;)

One other thing, the Number on the roof should always face to the driver's side. So if you're standing at the driver's side window, the number should be right-side-up for you, and upside-down for anyone on the passenger side of the car (including most of the fans in the stands. hehe).

As Forrest would say, "That's all I have to say about tha-at."

THEME-BASED DESIGN

 When you're trying to come up with an idea for a paint scheme, keep a few things in mind. A good car is eye-catchy, attractive, and reflects the attitude and image of the driver and sponsor. The Bobby Labonte Alternative car is a GREAT example. (not to toot my own horn. hehe)


This car has a very fast driver, with a Battery maker as a sponsor. Interstate is known for having extremely powerful products. What do you get from batteries…?? Electricity, that's what. So what better element could there be to convey that power and speed than lightning, the ultimate display of electricity known to man? This car has 4 basic colors in it, Black, Electric Green, bright orange (a good contrast for the green, when used sparingly like this) and white for highlighting. I chose the orange and green because those are the standard colors in the Interstate branding.

The car doesn't just look good, it communicates a message about the driver, the sponsor, the team, AND the artist. This is something you should always keep in mind when painting a car. If you can't come up with something like lightning, then think about what the sponsor company stands for. If it's a cutting-edge technological product like a Cell-phone company or Home Electronics maker, you'll want a hi-tech type of design for the car. If they sell old-time lemonade you might want to do more of a car that's a throwback to the old designs back in the Grand National days of the late 60's. I won't comment on the new Viagra car that's running Winston Cup next year (although the paint scheme ain't bad). <VBG>

A simple paint scheme that's indicative of the sponsor and the team is light years better than a great or complicated scheme that's nothing like the sponsor or driver. Keep that in mind. ;)

SNAKING IDEAS
I'll be the first to admit that some of the paint schemes you see on my cars are inspired by what I've seen elsewhere. 95% of the time the ideas I get from other cars are from cars in a series other than NASCAR. That makes up for about 10% of all the ideas I come up with. The other 90% come straight out of the ol' casaba.

Touring cars, World Sports Cars, and Formula One are all series that have some great ideas for paint schemes that can be adapted to a stock car (check out the examples to the right). They're light years ahead of most of the Stock car teams in terms of what they're putting on the cars. One of the coolest paint jobs around are the Jordan Formula 1 paint schemes (the 3rd image from the top). They're painted like yellowjacket bees with the red eyes on either side of the nose cone. Because of the shape of the nose cone, it really looks like a mad hornet is about to crawl up and sting you in the tailpipe when Hainz-Harald Frentzen is behind you. This car used to have a yellow snake scheme with the eyes on either side of the nose cone. This is an example of an incredible idea and a great paint scheme.

That one in particular wouldn't transfer onto a stock car too well (although Steve Park's shark car was a cool idea in a similar vein). But you should try watching other forms of racing, even boats and motorcycles, and see what they're doing. Don't be afraid do adapt a whole scheme or idea, or even just one element of a car design that you like into a car of your own.

SUBLIMINAL IMAGING
No, I'm not talking about backwards-masking. <G> There are certain things that you'll always see on race cars; Checkered flags, flames, parallel lines, and swooping curves, etc. Why? They sub-consciously lead people to think a certain way about the car. Checkered flags infer victory or a winner. Parallel lines (like along the bottom of Steve Park and Dale Jr's cars) infer speed. Flames infer pure power and explosiveness. Swooping curves infer smooth style and agility. When you go to a local track for the first time, you'll realize that your eye naturally gravitates toward cars with elements like these on them.

They are, however, grossly overused, particularly in the NASCAR SIM community. I try to use them sparingly, and use and develop other ways of getting someone to think of a car as 'fast' or 'powerful' or 'sleek'. Wedge shapes are a good way to do that, as are arrows. I like ellipses a lot (you've probably noticed <G> ), and I don't think they get enough use in current real paint jobs.

Just another thing to consider when putting together a paint scheme in your mind.
  





FREEZ'S LIST OF NO-NOS

 There are some things that just shouldn't be put on a race car as far as I'm concerned. Some of these I've even done myself, and now I look back at those cars and say, "What the heck was I smokin' when I did that?!".

  • Tileable Textures on a car - Somehow, people think that any background image that comes with FrontPage will look good on a car. I tried this with a few cars with VERY mild success. If you have to use a texture to make your car stand out, then the other elements of it aren't up to par, and you should direct your efforts towards that instead.
  • Naked Women - Come on. I like a good lookin' woman as much (or more) than the next guy, but leave the porno off the car, will ya? Kids watch this sport, for cryin' out loud.
  • Drug crap - Leave the freakin' Marijuana leaf off the hood. No one thinks you're cool. Try something else. If you can't come up with anything more creative than that, you've smoked too much of it already.
  • Blurry logos - If you can't get a readable logo to put on the car, don't use one. Put that idea on the shelf until you can get or make a clearer logo to use.
  • Hoopties - Unless you're working an assymetrical scheme, or are mocking your buddy's salvaged '72 Nova, the rear ¼ panels should be the same color, and so should the front fenders.
  • Ducting and grillwork decals used as headlights - This stuff just makes me laugh. I probably shouldn't, it's not very cool of me, but I just can't help it. There are so many decal sheets out there with decent headlights on them, surf a little and find them.
Dangit, lost those chill pills again! Hehe. I've covered just about everything, and got to spout off a little in the process. ;) I don't want to pick on you if one of your previous creations fits into one of the above categories (some of my previous cars do ). But by now you've learned how to do better, and how to do it right, so there's no excuse for being sloppy or not putting that extra few minutes in to give your car a realistic look. Not anymore. ;)

And thus ends the dissertation of theory by yours truly. ;) Most of these things should just be common sense. Some of this is just opinion, but sticking to this theory has shaped the car painter I've become. I assume you think I know what I'm doing, since you're taking the time to go through this tutorial, so you might want to seriously consider the various aspects of my theory of car painting. ;)

Wow! You've finished the first section of the tutorial. You might wanna take a break and try coming back tomorrow for the next section. I leave it up to you. I've just given you a lot of information to absorb, and I'm going to CRAM your head full of it with the next section. So just keep an eye on your guages. If you start to overheat, take a break. ;)

On to the first lesson of the next section...
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