I got my hands on someones old dell demension 4100 , 1ghz, 256mb, geforce 2 64mb, 40gig pc that was broken. they asked me to fix it or i could have the parts if it was beyond repair, well i could not get anything to work so it sat in my basement for a week or so. then i meet some Hot Girl whom I have been dating for the past few weeks. As we all know christmas is around the corner so I need something nice yet not to expensive as we have not been going out for a while. It turns out she is fairly smart and knows a good deal about computers even though she has a old like 300mhz POS, she even purchaced a copy of counter-strike prior to meeting me... a girl after my own heart well obviously a 1ghz with 256mb of ram and a geforce 2 64mb should run games like CS fine along with other nice things like winXP lol. so I put all the good parts I had into it, It used to have just 64mb of ram etc... and installed everything then cleaned up the ugly white case and looked at it... and was discusted with it. so i decided hey, anyone can buy her something nice for xmas but if i paint it nicely then its going to be something special she will like. so I inform her that I am building her "something" and i need to paint it and ask if she wants like stars or something on it and she is like.. umm how about flames! so I am like sure I can do that... even though I have yet to paint flames before. so I got to work and sanded the hell out of the textured case with some 150 sand paper and a small electric sander. I am sure you all know what that looks like so I neglected to take pictures, after that I put on about 2-3 coats of some Krylon primer. Krylon makes good **** so i went with their paint and primer and clear coat etc. after that dried I got some black and red paint and went at it. You know the drill, light coats of paint built up untill i had a nice smooth finish. I painted the front of the case RED and the top and 2 sides Black once that was done it looked something like a half ass newbie paint job, which was expected because nice results come from spending time with the detials. I went to a local auto repair/custom shop and got some 1/8" masking tape, this stuff is amazing, with the right amount of tension it stretches and curves just like you are drawing the lines with your finger. I practiced a lot with that and practiced drawing flames trying to figure out how the pro's do it right, red some articles etc. the idea was to make the front red flame into the black on the back of the case. so finally inbetween a few NFSU2 races with my buddy I just figured it out and grabbed the roll of tape and attacked the side of the case, I was quite happy with the results so i decided to attempt to do the same design on the opposit side free hand again. well after i finished i realized that the flames were going the wrong way on that side so i had to pull them up and start over again after finishing up that side i connected the 2 sides via the top so that the flames looked like they were flowing from one side over the top to the other... when i was done it looked like this... then I went out to the store and got some more masking tape because my test pannel that I had made previously had used way more tape than I expected. I then went and taped up everything I wanted to stay black leaving only the flames exposed to be painted this picture really shows how close I was able to copy my same design over again which I was happy about Now all that was left was to start painting some flames!
After masking off everything and buying some more cherry red Krylon paint I figured I should prime the flames first so they would match the front of the case in color. allas it was 11 and I did not have any primer left so i said o well and started spraying the flames red. about 4 coats of red later I had the same hue in a nice glossy cherry red color then the hard part... painting the flames, this would be easy with a real spray gun or a air brush but i only had cans of spray paint. So, what i did was take the Orange and spray from the tips foward then i shot the little semi circles with the orange to make it fade outward just a little after layering that I grabbed the yellow and did the tips of the flames the same way with the yellow creating a yellow to orange fade. here are some pics of what the case looked like still taped up you will notice my test pannel being used to keep paint off the kitcken table as the case was still quite wet at that point. (yes that is my corona, no it was not the first of the evening, yes it made painting more fun) I ran into a problem getting the fade just right around the round semi circle parts and ended up getting some running paint which i had to fix and cant be seen now, unfortunatly the one side of the case that happened on the paint leaked through some of the seems in the tape and now random parts of the case that should be black have gooy res/orange paint chunks on them the top and the other side look great though on this side you can see some of the tiny scratches and parts where the paint leaked... I am not sure what I am going to do to fix this so if anyone has some tips it would help me out a lot, I still have to paint some of the front buttons and detials etc and put a nice clear coat on the whole thing so my next step here is to take care of the detials and fix any errors but I am happy with the way the flames came out, and yes I know their is still white on the seem between the front and side.. I will take care of that. so hints suggestions etc are welcome.
Maybe try some model/touch-up paint? The paint looks nice overall, but you should paint the inside edge of the front panel (where you can see the white).
yeah I posted about that earlier below the picture "I am happy with the way the flames came out, and yes I know their is still white on the seem between the front and side.. I will take care of that." think i should sand and mask off everything but the mistakes and then spray those areas?
Just touch up paint it mate, will take less time and, as we know, Christmas is in like 10 days, so you wouldn't want to take all that time masking and sanding and repinting and waiting for it to dry and sand the blemishes and then clear coat... touch up paint can look just as good if done right. You might want to paint the drive fascias red too... BTWW nice flames, I am flaming my next project (although admittedly not with paint) and I like to see another person's view of how fire should look, since there is no set standard or rule on how to do them. All in all, nice fading job, and once you touch up that stripe, it will look great!
I think touch-up paint would be better than respraying it. It might become uneven or their might be difference in color when it dries. If I were you, I would probably just spray some of the paint onto something, then take a small brush and use some of that paint to touch-up the areas.
did you say you were a newbie interms of painting?, if you did then there is something wrong with you, that is one of the best paintjobs i've seen, MOD ON
FATHEAD: if you think that is great, I'd encourage you to look at the results of this guide by linear: http://linear1.org/gm/archives/00000156.php
I havn't put up a picture of the face plates yet, the outside is black and the inside actuiall cd tray cover that moves is red and the buttons might end up red as well. the 2 blank covers for the 3 1/2" bays are black and I was thinking about doing some cursive on their in red with "lynnette" on one of them(her name) sound like a good idea? the other side of the case not shown in any of those pictures has more noticiable defects due to over spray but it was 2am in my garage poory lit and the corona's were pretty tasty..... so I am thinking of going over those areas with some sand paper or soemthing to flatten them the using some spray paint spraied in a paper cup to brush onto the case and hopefully cover it up. by then the paint will also have cured and shrunk a little so the end result should look better before I put the clear coat on. Obviously I cant start cutting windows etc now.. not something i think she wants anyway but any ideas you guys have to make this even cooler?
So i am back from some more masking and painting.... I decided to attack the blobs of paint with sand paper untill they were gone and the side was once again smooth. after that i masked off the flames leaving the black area exposed, i then neglected to take a picture of this. after that i sprayed a light black coat over the top of it and it turned out really well here is a picture of all of the flames and you really cant tell their was ever a problem, so I am hoping with a gloss coat and some polishing it will be perfect this btw is the side that came out well, i had to touch up a small area where the paint chipped at the top too I somehow managed to keep the inside paint free so far and then I went and fixed the edges of the front with red and painted the buttons and DELL logo black by hand with the plans I have for the drive bay covers this should all turn out nicely I just finished painting the drive bay buttons but they are drying still so a little detial brush work and I should be all set. I do have one more idea though I was thinking of painting Lynnette in cursive on one of the 3 1/2" bay covers to make it a little more personal but idk you think thats a good idea?
I say don't spray "Lynette" on it, somehow that sounds a little tacky to me. But the paintjob looks absolutely f-ing killer! Wow can I send over my old beige case and have you spray it? That's amazing mate If my new PC didn't have a nice mac-white-ness to it I'd try it myself. Mod on!
