How much success you achieve in the painting for you cars depends on a number of factors but I would estimate a good 80% of your success will come from preparation, planning and masking, and only 20% from your painting skills and design ideas. Once you have purchased your new body, its time to begin to prep it. I should point out; you will be painting the INSIDE of the body. This is usually news to first timers and the reason for it is, when you crash you don't want to scrape off paint. By painting the inside, it gives your car a nice shiny finish and protects it from the rigors of racing. If you are going to do a simple one or two color paint job, then my first step is to lightly sand the inside of the body with 600 or 1000 grit sand paper. Remember to stay away from the windows! This will scuff the Lexan and give the paint some extra "bite" on the body. Don't worry, the scuffing won't show at all once the body is painted. Some will say this step is unnecessary, however, it takes all of one minute and I've never had body chip paint when I've done it.

When I paint multi-colored bodies, I skip the scuffing step unless I have some 1000 grit sand paper on hand because scuffing with courser paper creates little valleys for the paint to seep or bleed under the masking, ruining a nice line. The next step is to wash the body. I use dishwashing soap right in the kitchen sink. This will remove any mold lubricants left on the inside of the mold when it was created. Dry it very carefully with lint free paper towels. You want to make sure you have a clean surface so dust isn't trapped in the paint.

Once the car is dry, its time to put on the window masks. Simply put them where they belong, again on the inside of the body!!! At least once a month someone on the message boards posts a message about how they forgot this step and now their windows are painted! Once in place, run your finger alone the edge to seal it so paint doesn't seep in. If you don't have any idea what the paint design should be, don't worry, a design will come to you, just keep looking and use your imagination. If nothing comes to you, look through magazines or websites and see what others have done. When you see a design you like, slowly deconstruct it in your head, color-by-color, section-by-section. This is as simple as asking, "Where should I start first?" and "How did they achieve that effect?"

When you have the design, draw it out right on the body. I believe in the one of the greatest tools you can use in designing your body is a Sharpie black marker. Parma also makes a marker designed for detailing R/C car bodies. I use them because they have a thick and a thin tip. Just draw your design right on the outside of the body! You don't have to worry about it coming off, rubbing alcohol or Bolink Body Wash will take it right off. If your car has over spray film, you will just pull of the design when you're done. While you have the marker in your hand, now is a good time to mark the body mounting post positions if your using a body that doesn't provide them for your car. Just set the body down over the chassis and mark the spots. Now grab your Xacto knife and score a small mark on the marker spots so your post positions aren't washed away.

Using an airbrush to paint a car adds a whole new level of fun, complexity and detail to your car bodies. My advice for beginning to paint with your airbrush is that less is more. Don't go crazy trying to paint everything you've seen on one single body or you will just end up with a mess. Copying other painters designs is one of the best ways to learn to paint. Art students are required to study and attempt to duplicate the masters. RC painters can learn a lot from studying those better then themselves. I would be lost had I not had some exceptional painters to follow.

At about $24 a piece, Lexan bodies are expensive. For practice, one of the best pieces of advice I ever read was to take 2 Liter soda bottles and cut them in half and practice painting them. This is a great way to practice your painting techniques and the material is close enough to Lexan to simulate the results.

Let's get painting! Spraying a one or two color paint job is fairly straightforward. One of the things to remember is that you want your first coat to be fairly light. The reason for this is that you want the paint around any masking, particularly the window masking, to form a bond and help prevent the additional coats from bleeding through. You want to spray 4 to 6 thin coats versus 1 or 2 thick coats of paint. Several thinner coats will bond better to the car and give you a more even finish. Keep in mind though that metallic and florescent paints will get darker with each additional coat.

To begin, if you are using a canned paint, take your can of paint and set it in a shallow dish of hot water for about 5 minutes. This will: 1. Warm the paint up and 2. Increase the pressure inside the can, both of which will result in the paint spraying a finer mist. If you are using an airbrush, load up some paint and turn your compressor on! After applying the first light coat you can use a hair dryer to help dry the paint. I usually use a hair dryer for 3 or 4 minutes and then still let the body sit for 30 minutes to dry. After the 30-minute mark, I will spray a thicker coat on the body and again let it dry for 30 minutes. If you're painting a two or more color paint job, the general rule is to spray the darker colors first. As you will see, this rule can easily be broken by backing the lighter colors first with white and silver, which ever is appropriate to spray first. Like I said, it's an easily broken rule but follow it when you can.

Once your happy with the number of coats of a particular color, you should spray a few backing coats on your car depending on what paint you used and how you want it to look. Backing your top coats will make them more intense and deep. While you can experiment to with different backing colors to effect the top coat color, the following guide lines will help you achieve the "true" color of your top coats.

• Black, white and silver need no backing coats. Backing white with silver or silver with white will make them impervious to letting over colors "leak" through them when they are sprayed behind them.
• Back plain and florescent colors with white to help make them brighter. This is especially important with fluorescents. Adding white behind them will really make them pop!
• With metallics and pearls, back them with Silver, again to make them brighter and deeper. Backing a metallic or pearl with gold will give the top color a warmer feel.

For a protective backing coat, you can finish your backing job with two quick coats of Parma's FasKoat. FasKoat is the liquid agent used for FasGlitter but on it's own, it makes a fantastic protective coating for keeping water and nitro residue out of your paint job. If you will be racing, two coats of FasKoat will go a long ways towards protecting your body from the elements and make wiping it off even easier.

Now your car is painted, what next? All the steps I am about to discuss need to happen whether you've painted one color or a thousand colors. So far, the easy part has been painting, the difficult part is yet to come simply because it requires even more patience.

I can't stress this enough, now that you've finished painting, let the paint dry at least over night if not for a complete 24 hours. Several times, I've been in a rush and started finishing the car only to ruin the paint job by scratching the paint before it was completely dry or by pulling off the window masks only to watch the adhesive backing grab hold of some paint and pull it off in spots!

Once the car is done, the first thing I do is trim it with a pair of Lexan scissors. Simply cut slowly to keep the lines even. When you get to cutting out the wheel wells, go slow and if you need to, make relief cuts so the excess Lexan falls away in pieces. If you have scratched your car, now is the time to fix it, either with your spray cans or a small brush and bottle paint. Again, let it dry before moving on to the next step.

The next step is to drill the antenna, wing and body mounting holes. For years I used a drill with the proper sized bit, but more often then not, it didn't cut a clean hole. Then I went on to use a Dremel tool with a cone shaped attachment since it offers much greater control. This lets me vary the size of the hole simply by pressing the bit down further. It also gives a cleaner cut then a drill bit does. During the past year, I stopped being a cheap skate and picked up a reamer and it's the best $20 I ever spent. They make nice clean holes in almost and instant and I am constantly finding new uses for it. Just break down and get one! Once the holes are drilled, I put a round sanding drum attachment on the Dremel and slowly smooth out any rough spots in my cutting, especially around the wheel wells.

Now that those steps are completed, we can finally remove the over spray film and window masks to really see what your car looks like! You also need to mount the wing. Since the holes are drilled, now apply a thin smear of Shoe Goo to each body post. The Shoe Goo will dry flexible and minimize vibrations of the wing against the car. Using the holes you drilled for the wing, simply attach it to your car with the provided nuts. You can use either Shoe Goo or servo tape to attach the side plates to the wing. You can also apply the stickers now. It's just my opinion that less is more when it comes to stickers but if you want to make your car look like the suitcase of a Grateful Dead groupie, knock yourself out. If you want additional decal stickers, both XXX Main and Parma make extensive sticker sets.

What's that? You think you're done? Not quite. There is one final step I do to all my bodies and that is to put foam disks inside the body around each mounting hole. These are available in most hobby shops for about $2.00 a car. They protect your paint finish by letting the body rest on foam instead of having the body posts rub against the car. They take all of one minute to install, cost $2 so just do it, you'll be happy you did! Ok, now you can test your new body out!

Racing takes a toll on bodies, even for the best of racers. For those of us without the skills of a Mark Pavidis or Billy Easton, new bodies will make up a bigger portion of our racing budget. You can take several steps to make your Lexan bodies strong and able to withstand bigger impacts. Fortifying your body only takes a few moments and will add life to your body. There are two methods, the Super method and the Super Duper method (yes, I am a genius for conceiving such incredible names for them J) Personally, I use the Super method. The Super Duper method requires the use of fiberglass strips and frankly, I don't like handling the stuff and find the differences to be nominal, so I go the easy route. I've added the Super Duper method just as a reference.

1. Squeeze a big blob of Shoe Goo out on to your finger and apply it thickly to the front wheel wells.
2. Squeeze a big blob of Shoe Goo out on to your finger and apply it thickly to the front area of grill and bumper.
3. Let the Shoe Goo dry
4. Take it out and race it!

1. Take the fiberglass cloth and just out 3 sections. Two smaller pieces for each wheel well and one bigger piece for the bumper/grill area.
2. Squeeze a blob of Shoe Goo out on to your finger and apply it thinly to the front wheel wells.
3. Carefully lay the fiberglass cloth out along the wheel wells, pressing it into the Shoe Goo.
4. Squeeze a big blob of Shoe Goo out on to your finger and apply it to the front area of grill and bumper.
5. Carefully lay the fiberglass cloth out along the bumper/grill area, pressing it into the Shoe Goo.
6. Let the Shoe Goo dry.
7. Apply a thicker layer of Shoe Goo on top of the fiberglass in each area
8. Let the Shoe Goo dry
9. Take it out and race it!