I'm doing it wrong.

[Amoeba]

So yesterday in the mail I got the lid Candyman did for my Truggy and I realize I may be doing my painting wrong.

I was admiring the lid and looking under the hood. I was checking out the mask lines & cuts to see how someone with way more experience than me paints to learn from it. When I held it up to the light I noticed that there was a lot more light coming through the body than when I do lids. I think I'm laying down too many coats when painting. Candyman's coverage and quality is top notch... and he uses a lot less paint.

How many coats should I be laying down? My previous rule of thumb was a light check. If I could see light coming through the outside of the lid when holding it up I continued adding coats until it was opaque. Looking at what Candyman did I can see that I'm overdoing the coats and it's not necessary. Aside from making mask removal without pull up a pain in the ass, are there any reasons a lot of coats is a bad thing? What rule of thumb do you experienced painters use when determining that you have enough coats?

 

[Candyman]

I coat until the color looks uniform from the outside. Always keep in mind what layers are coming next. Usually you'll paint dark colors first so it's not a big deal. But just keep in mind what color you're about to spray and how it might affect the colors already down.
I don't like to heap the paint on. Thinner paint is more flexible and won't chip as easily. Although with a lot of the polycarb paints they're pretty flexible no matter what. And if you're totally anal, less paint is less weight.

 

[NitroRC4Life]

I am not to experienced yet but i have done some research and wat good painters do first is make u always clean the body thoroughly before painting anything....then apply ver light coats like 3 or 4 of them....for the first coat u should be able to see through sort of......but then do the same for like 4 coast of each color to make it not so transparent....then when ur done with all the colors u have to back everything with a color....i have heard to either use white or black as a backing for all the colors....Just my 2 cents though....

 

[jerry7007]

when i did my truck body, i painted it metalic red, and it almost looked pink, and was letting in alot of light, so i just used some silver paint i had laying around, and painted it on last.