Engine painting and detail. (Tutorials or tips?)

Hey,
There is alot of great tips and tutorials in the FAQs.
Aside from those does anyone know of any tutorials or tips they can give on engine work?
I've seen examples throughout the forum and the detail and realism is just mind blowing....
Like the discolored exhausts from heat and titanium tips for example...

Can anyone give some hints or point me to some tutorials if there is one or give a rough description of how they work on engines and the likes.

I am most curious on using airbrush or brush for engine components?
And what the best paints r for realistic metal replication...
Currently I am using brush Testor Metalisers...
And what colours r good to have in your collection for generic use on detailing engines (As insruction manuals just say "silver" or "metallic grey" or "gold" etc etc)

Thanks all!

Specific questions, mate. Figure out exactly what you want to know, and ask about that with as much detail as you can possibly provide.

If you ask 'can somebody tell me how to detail engines?', you probably won't find many people willing to spend all day at the keyboard listing every tip, trick, and hint they've ever used.

But if you ask "I'm building a 1/24 Tamiya Skyline R32. I found this build and this build (include the pics!), and I really like how the ignition system was detailed. Can someone tell me how to do this", then you'll probably get useful answers.

For painting engines, it really doesn't seem to matter what paint you use. Metalizer is a terrific paint, but I've found that it really doesn't look any better or worse (or more realistic) than 'plain old' Tamiya acrylics.

Most people will tell you to airbrush everything you can, and only brushpaint what you can't airbrush. Metallics certainly always look best sprayed.

(And please, if you mean to use the word 'are', type it out and don't just use 'r'. We have alot of members here who don't speak/read English as their first language, and using cutesy typing tricks makes it unnecessarily difficult for them to read your posts. AIMspeak will get you banned from AF.)

Ah thanks for that.
Yeah you are probably right to ask about specifics. I guess I didnt have a specific question... at the time. Ill have a good think about it though.
(And the "r", I didnt mean to use it.... I generally try not to use "AIM" typing on forums... sorry...)

I guess I will start with a specific question that was mention above of.
What paint colours are good to have in your collection for engine detail?
And what paint is best to use for an general engine block and transmission rather than just "silver".

On that thought, ignoring wiring etc. I was just curious on tips and what paint colours to use to make an engine block, transmission and exhaust realistic.
(Or is that still to general?)

Thanks!

P.S. What color is used on the rotor and hub of the rotor in your signature MPWR?

What colors to paint the engine very much depends on the car you're building.

For some cars (some Ferrari's, say), the engine and transmission are cast out of the same alloy, and you can paint the whole thing one color.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8753/3600121zb.jpg

This is the engine/transmission for a Ferrari 360. The block and tranny are the same alloy, so the whole thing is painted aluminum. The valve covers were done in steel (not like there's a visible difference), and only the transmission endplate (black) and intake plenums (red) are in different colors.

Other cars will often have each different part in different colors.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/8992/7tc062py4.jpg

This is the engine for a Lotus Super 7. The engine block is blue, the clutch bell is black, the gearbox is dark grey, the gearbox access panel is bare metal, the oil pain will be steel, and the head will be light grey.

Exhausts can be all kinds of different colors- so you have to know what the real thing looks like and paint to match.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/2050/360064vf5.jpg

Here, the manifolds are stained darker than the catalytic converters- because the manifolds tend to run hotter. The heatstaining was done by freehand airbrushing transpartent orange and smoke over metalic grey.

Unfortunately, the brake rotor in my sig isn't really painted. The brakes on this build were machined out of aluminum.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/3072/360055ua2.jpg

The hub was painted with grey automotive primer, and then weathered a bit to give a slight surface rust appearance.


So you can't really say 'this is the color engines should be painted'. It depends on what you're modeling....

MPWR. Thanks for taking the time to make that post. I appreciate it alot. Gives me alot of insight in relation to the topic.
Thanks again!

No worries.

So what are you building?

I am a fan of the Aclad range of pre thinned pints used through an airbrush, normally over a black base to keep them dark.
Also a thin wash of semi gloss black is good for picking out detail such as the bolts you see here.
Exhaust staining is done using aclad and clear reds/orange/blue/green
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/3804/c2engineazf4.jpg

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/3804/c2engineazf4.jpg
Is that a scale model!??!!? :eek2:

Superb work

That is about the best thing I've seen on AF. Unfreakingbelievable. I'm now going to hunt down Guiddy WIPs - if this is a hoax, you must die...

What colors to paint the engine very much depends on the car you're building.

For some cars (some Ferrari's, say), the engine and transmission are cast out of the same alloy, and you can paint the whole thing one color.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8753/3600121zb.jpg

This is the engine/transmission for a Ferrari 360. The block and tranny are the same alloy, so the whole thing is painted aluminum. The valve covers were done in steel (not like there's a visible difference), and only the transmission endplate (black) and intake plenums (red) are in different colors.

Other cars will often have each different part in different colors.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/8992/7tc062py4.jpg

This is the engine for a Lotus Super 7. The engine block is blue, the clutch bell is black, the gearbox is dark grey, the gearbox access panel is bare metal, the oil pain will be steel, and the head will be light grey.

Exhausts can be all kinds of different colors- so you have to know what the real thing looks like and paint to match.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/2050/360064vf5.jpg

Here, the manifolds are stained darker than the catalytic converters- because the manifolds tend to run hotter. The heatstaining was done by freehand airbrushing transpartent orange and smoke over metalic grey.

Unfortunately, the brake rotor in my sig isn't really painted. The brakes on this build were machined out of aluminum.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/3072/360055ua2.jpg

The hub was painted with grey automotive primer, and then weathered a bit to give a slight surface rust appearance.


So you can't really say 'this is the color engines should be painted'. It depends on what you're modeling....

Hi MPWR

May I ask what size drill piece you used to drill the break disc?

Thanks.

May I ask what size drill piece you used to drill the break disc?


Each disc has 70 holes drilled with a #80 drill bit. They're 0.014", or about 0.343mm. In 1/24, the holes are about 1/3", so they're a little bit oversized. I think I only broke two bits doing all four discs.

Each disc has 70 holes drilled with a #80 drill bit. They're 0.014", or about 0.343mm. In 1/24, the holes are about 1/3", so they're a little bit oversized. I think I only broke two bits doing all four discs.


Just curious if you used the sensitive drilling attach? Or did you just have the bit right in the chuck?

Murray

That is about the best thing I've seen on AF. Unfreakingbelievable. I'm now going to hunt down Guiddy WIPs - if this is a hoax, you must die...

Hehe! Not my work guys, I have this kit but not started it yet! Just a very good example of how Aclad can be used. Awesome hey?
I have been airbrushing heat stain on my models but nothing this adventurous yet!

Hehe! Not my work guys, I have this kit but not started it yet! Just a very good example of how Aclad can be used. Awesome hey?
I have been airbrushing heat stain on my models but nothing this adventurous yet!

May I ask... whose work is it? That's pretty stupendous; I wanna see more!

Diddy