I absolutely hate Dale Earnhardt Jr so I thought it would be cool to create my own wrecker out of the roadbuster mold. I work in a sign shop where we do vinyl wraps on vehicles all the time so I decided to wrap the car instead of paint.
I had done some work for Max Q Motorsports and their #37 team and knew I would have this in time for the 4th of july. SO, I used their paint scheme and new sponsor Black Cat Fireworks.
I started with plain black Vinyl and wrapped the outer shell around the hood and nose, rear end and deck lid, knee plates and those weird shin plates that just sit on the inside of the leg. Then I used an exacto knife to cut the Vinyl along all the break lines and cleaned up all the edges.
Next step was to photograph the car dead on to use as a guide to make my template. I traced the outline of the car on the computer and then measured a few gaps to size it correctly in FlexiSign Pro. Once I had the size correct and the template drawn I was able to import the artwork for the car and start adjusting and fitting. Everything was printed with a black background to make it easier to lay on the car. I lined up the yellow edge of the sides with the bottom of the car and wrapped up from there. The sides wrapped the greenhouse sides as well. Again I used a knife to cut the windows and the break lines. I then followed the same basic steps for the rest of the car. Hood, Grill Decal, roof etc. I also used a heat gun with a vinyl squeegee to get it to lay in the tighter areas like the lower front air dam. Afterwards I used a spray on laminate to seal the vinyl and help smooth out some of the edges where 2 layers of vinyl overlapped.
Being a Black Car fireworks car I tentatively gave him the name Pyro. But I am definitely open to suggestions. I do also plan to re-do or replace the head.
I was pleased with the outcome for never having done any sort of re-painting or kitbashing on a transformer before.
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
