The Energon Pub

So a few weeks ago I posted a "repaint" of roadbuster with the black cat fireworks paint scheme. For that car I did a vinyl wrap (like people do on their real cars) rather than paint. Well, I have done it again with a few improved techniques.
Last time I completely covered the car shell in black vinyl then printed the decals on a block strip and basically double layered nearly all the car and then used a spray on laminate.
This time I cut down on the coverage of extra layers of vinyl.
I still wrapped the car completely in black vinyl as seen here:

the vinyl you see sticking out is the area I call the "boobs" on the hood with the headlights. This picture was taked right before using a heat gun and an application squeegee to work the vinyl down and around the compound curve that section of the toy. Just as in real life cars sometimes in a curve like that you have to stretch and contort to get a smooth lay.

The next step was to design and print the logos and such. I started by taking photos of the car's sides and top as square on as I could get them and then loading them into my software (FlexiSign Pro) and tracing the shape of the car to create a template mask. Then I measured out certain areas of the car and using a measuring tool in my software I scaled the photo and outline to match the exact dimensions of the car. Then I went and created the design... This car was for a good friend of mine who wanted to re-create the 1995 Nascar special paint scheme "Thunderbat" driven by Bill Elliott and sponsored by mcdonald's and promoting the Batman Forever movie. So I completed the decals by re-drawing the batman forever logo into vector format and also re-drew the #94.
All the decals were then printed with a black border around them so that they would blend in with the base color. I used ARLON brand 2mil print media vinyl. It is a premium grade vinyl used for wraps and then gave all the pieces a 2mil cast over laminate to help protect the ink. I also printed a few extras just in case I messed up and had to peel off and replace a part. Once printed and laminated I used a plotter to cut out the shapes so that they all applied like stickers.

Here you can see the first couple of decals actually applied and a couple of the extras laying on the desk.
As I went along with the application I used an exacto knife to cut the vinyl along all the break lines. Eventually it came to a finished product.

the real challenge was actually to make a Nationwide chevy impala model appear like a Cup series Fusion. Luckily a set of grill and headlight decals used for painting cars for the N2k3 video game made by design mods racing was the perfect size and curvature to fit the car.

That's coo, you used the vinly really effectively. Very clean - well done!

thank you