AUDI R8--the Devil is in the Details

Still baffled by how I am going to glue in the glass I turned my attention to some detail painting for the Revell of Germany Audi R8...let's look at the engine cover:

This is a tricky part, paint wise. The box art has the whole thing Matt Black but I thought it'd be more fun to do a black/white "two tone" to match the rest of the car.  The black side pieces are masked using Tamiya yellow tape and Future floor shine, same as I used on the glass.  But how to paint some of the smaller details like the indentation towards the bottom without making a huge mess?

Acrylic wash to the rescue! The more time I spend on this silly hobby the more I find myself using this technique!  I use X20A thinner, a stolen Mexican restaurant plastic salsa cup and some Tamiya acrylic.  You can use different paints and different thinners but you should stick to acrylic I feel.  For instance, I have used Testors Acryl and Windshield wiper fluid, same idea.

I put about 1/3 lid of thinner and 4 drops of paint into the cup, then stir it up with a wood stick I stole from a coffee shop.  (Notice how in hobby mags they always show the tool with the paint to add drama?  Here's my attempt at the same thing....)

Now put the lid on a surface where the indentation is level and fill it up.  Easy!  Now the hard part. Don't bump it, don't move it, don't pick it up to admire you work, or anything else, for at least 12 hours!  Or else the paint will spill out!  I have some overflow here, I will touch that up when everything is dry, but it's looking not too bad already.

When it's dry you end up with all sorts of cool detail painting, like some of the wash I put on these brake pads.  And it's really easy!

And here's the best part--if you are washing acrylic into enamel or lacquer, you can use acrylic thinners like the Dried Paint Solvent above to clean up any spills, overflows, or other count chockulas without attacking the base color coat!  COOL!

And windex will remove ALL of it in case you screw the pooch! Just use the thinners sparingly.  For the R8 the color coat is acrylic as well so I can't use my thinners to fix wash issues, I have to touch up.  Oh well, live and learn.