Losing grip – Fawkes comes alive

G’day folks and may it be a happy one! A good way for me to make any day better, is to paint. Case in point: I have more painted RC bodies than I have chassis to fit them on. Currently on my work desk (well, outside dining table) is the body of my VS4-10 Phoenix. According to personal naming tradition I have decided to call it Fawkes. Considering he is a phoenix, it is no more than fitting that I am already planning to paint a second body for him.

One body at a time though, and for the first one I decided to do a pretty quick job of it, just to get it running. The natural colour choice would of course be red, so I went for blue and orange. Sounds weird? It’s not: complimentary colours, on opposite sides of the colour wheel for high contrast. Also, I got me some Vanquish wheels for this build, blue methods with orange inner rings.

A general note and warning on Vanquish wheels: good looking, great quality, but low value for the money. Wheels, blue headlock rings, orange inner rings, scale hubs and scale hardware: it certainly adds up!

Anyway, my new (again!) method of painting panel lines did not work out – when I removed the masking tape the lines came with it – so I started over by masking the entire inside, sparing the outlines of the windows and the fenders, then spraying it black. Tamiya rattle can, refreshing after having used airbrush exclusively for the past five bodies or so.

At this stage I only had a very basic idea of the design, but decided to just get going and figure it out on the way. The basic idea was this: blue body with an orange stripe on the side, with blue and orange hues matching the colour of the wheels, and some kid of graphic on the hood invoking the idea of a phoenix. In the picture above you can see how I tried out a couple of different blues on random pieces of transparent plastic. It’s different combinations of Tamiya metallic blue (PS16), tamiya dark metallic blue (PS59) and black and silver backings.

For the phoenix graphic I just couldn’t be bothered doing something on the computer, that would take too much time. I had a look around and got an idea: the Vanquish logo on the box the kit came in. Could I make that work? Turning it into schematic wings? I liked the idea of keeping things simple, so I had a go with my exacto knife: cutting out the logo, tracing it onto the hood, covering it with strips of masking tape, more cutting and finally removing every second strip for something that, with a bit of good will and fantasy, can represent wings.

I then did a quick job of cutting out the name Fawkes in masking tape. I just freehanded it, again very consciously deciding to just get things done. That it looks as if a three-year-old did it is fine with me, in this case. It suits the name, methinks.

And just like that: tadaa! Time to hit it with the blue and orange, trying to match those wheels. More on that next week. Have a good one!

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