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.
