Hummer H2 With American Flag
I've been wanting to do this particular design for quite some time now. Ever since I saw Bob Hasting's article in a previous issue of RCCA, I knew that one day I would try to see if I could pull it off. I knew I could never pull it off as good as Bob did in his article, but overall I think it turned out well. While I can't take credit for this design, I did draw up flag and star templates to help myself apply it to the body. You can download these templates from my Masks and Templates Section.
For the body I chose the Pro-line Hummer H2. I chose this body because of the fact that Zac has wanted to run it on his T-Maxx since he had seen the new Hummer hit the market. I put it on order at the hobby store soon after it was announced, and had hoped it would be here in time so he could receive it for his birthday. However that didn't happen, so in the end, it became a belated birthday gift. When I actually went to the hobby store to pick up the H2 body I had on order, they had another one on the shelf. So I picked it up as well. One body was given to Zac and the other was put on eBay, as I just painted it to gain experiance.
For anyone interested the Hummer H2 body will fit on a Stampede, sort of. However, like the other Maxx Hummer bodies I've seen, it's a little long and a clearance issue around the fender wheels needs to be addressed. Raising the body will help the fender wheel issue, but the front of the body sticks out a little too much for it to look good on the Stampede in my opinion. If you really want the body on your Stampede you can make it work.
I also used the following colors.
The first thing I did was to take the clear body and mark with a permanent marker the location for the body posts for Zac's body. It's easiest to do this while the body is still clear. Then I applied several coats of liquid masking throughout the entire inside of the body. The second body I didn't mark holes in, as I didn't intend to cut them out.
I then laid out the design with a permanent marker on the outside of the bodies. Once that was completed I used a hobby knife to make all my cuts where the masking would be peeled away as I applied the colors. I first painted the gold trim at the top of the flag and then pulled up the liquid masking around the area that would be blue. I applied vinyl stars that I had printed and cut out of a Parma Uncut Vinyl Mask Sheet, and then sprayed the blue over the front of the body. For the darker red areas, of the red stripes, I deviated from the article and used red with a few drops of black. Then over that I sprayed the base red color. Over the gray, I shot white and then filled in the stars on the hood. I also backed all the colors with white at this point.
Next I painted the lower and top molding black, and the rest of the body silver. As a final touch, after backing the silver and black with white, I painted the sunroof with Pactra Transparent Smoke to give it a tinted look. The rest of the windows I kept clear, because it will be placed on a nitro truck and I think cooling holes are less noticeable in clear windows than tinted ones.
The first set of pictures is Zac's body, while the second sets are the one that went on eBay. A full walkthrough of the paint scheme can be found in the February 2002 issue of RCCA magazine.
Click on a picture to enlarge it.
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