How To Paint an RC car body with liquid mask

Liquid masking is as an alternative for painting methods that involve taping. The liquid masking is applied on the inner surface of the body. Once the mask has dried, you can cut the desired patterns in the mask and apply the paints in appropriate order. Compared to the taping method, the advantages of using liquid mask include less leaking and the possibility to make more complex patterns, plus creating the patterns is much faster when using liquid masking.

Used Accessories:

• Liquid mask
• Hobby knife
• Paint

The first thing to do is wash the inner surface of the body. For this, use a clean and soft sponge and a bit of dishwashing soap. Wash and rinse the body carefully. Leave the body to dry after washing.

Once the body has dried, apply the liquid mask on the inner surface of the body in two or three coats. Choose a wide brush and make sure not to let the mask “foam” when masking over all the dints and corners. Let each coat dry properly before applying the next one. Once dried, the mask will be almost invisible.

Sketching the pattern
Sketch the desired pattern on the protective plastic on the outer surface of the body. Note that all bodies don’t have a removable plastic on the surface so check this before you start sketching. When you are working on your first body and practicing the painting process, it’s advisable to go for larger and simpler designs.

Cutting the mask
Use a crafting knife to cut off the mask. When cutting the mask, press the knife as gently as possible to avoid cut marks on the finished body.

Painting
Always start with darker colors that cover best. Start by cutting off the masking from the area where the darkest color will be applied. After removing the masking, paint the area either with spray gun or spray paint. Once you’ve applied a sufficient amount of coats, you can move on to cut the next pattern (note that you can cut all the patterns of the same color at once) proceeding from darker to lighter colors. With lighter colors you may need to apply up to two to three coats to get the desired degree of coverage for the color.

- Remove mask from the areas you want to paint

- Proceed to next phase.


- After darkest areas are painted remove the rest of the mask from lighter areas.

Next, pick the base paint - either white or black depending on the colors used. As a general rule of thumb: if you used mainly dark colors pick black and if lighter colors, pick white.

Once the base paint has dried, cut off the window masks and cut the whole body into the desired shape. Finally, you can remove the protective plastic where you made the pattern sketch.

- Used white base color since front of the body is also white.