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How to Make a Good Race Car Paint Scheme

How to Make a Good Race Car Paint Scheme thumbnail
From a distance a cluttered paint scheme blurs together.

Your race car’s paint job helps race fans identify their favorite drivers. Famous NASCAR paint scheme designer Sam Bass said in a “Circle Track” magazine interview, “The car needs to look fast while sitting still.” Race car paint schemes also have to be eye-catching to increase exposure for the people who sponsor your racing team. A well-planned paint scheme can also attract new investors. The more professional your car looks, the more comfortable a sponsor will be with giving you their money. No sponsor wants to put his logo on a car that is aesthetically unappealing.

Things You'll Need

  • Color pencils
  • Markers
  • Sketchpad
  • Digital camera
  • Color Wheel
  • Paint
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Instructions

    • 1

      Steal ideas. Flip through car racing magazines and hot rod websites to gather ideas for different paint schemes. Attend car shows that come into town at your local convention center. Take a digital camera or a camera phone so that you can snap pictures of the paint jobs.

    • 2

      Keep your eyes open at racing events. Look for design scheme trends amongst other race car enthusiasts. You want to avoid doing the same exact things that everyone else is doing, yet you want to learn from their achievements as well. Take a digital camera with you so that you can get ideas of what other races are doing.

    • 3

      Determine the image you want to portray with your paint scheme. For example, if you have an animal that you want to be associated with such as a cheetah, then you may consider recreating the spotted coat of the feline. At this stage, don't pick out colors. Keep your mind open and focus on the design elements.

    • 4

      Draw or trace the race car that you are going to be painting. You will need a shot of the front, top driver’s side, passenger’s side and back of the car. Make 20 copies of the drawings so that you can keep testing design schemes without worry.

    • 5

      Ask the sponsor to provide you with the manual for using and making changes to their logo. Get approval for any modifications that you might want to make to the sponsor’s logo before using it in your design.

    • 6

      Create a design completely opposite of the last sketch you attempted. Be as outrageous and wild as you want with the design. The preliminary sketches are for your eyes only. Use color pencils or different colored markers to play around with color concepts.

    • 7

      Work with software templates such as those provided by Paint.net, iRacing or Adobe After Affects. Paint.net gives you the chance to work with 3-D models to create side panels, hood, roof and rear panel templates to help you with your design.

    • 8

      Choose several primary images that can be the centerpiece of your paint scheme. For example, if your sponsor sells flowers, then flowers may be your primary image. Or your image may be an iconic figure or animal (like the cheetah) that fans have come to associate with you as a race car driver.

    • 9

      Play around with accents, outlines and design shapes. Try various combinations of images, colors and ideas that are different from anything you’ve already seen. Incorporate small elements from all the design schemes that you like the best.

    • 10

      Get a color wheel from a craft store or visit a hardware or home improvement chain. Mix and match colors with the wheel so that you can determine which colors work best together. Match your sponsor’s logo colors to your primary race car color choices.

    • 11

      Choose three contrasting colors. For example, choose light colors to be placed on dark backgrounds. One of the colors should be your accent color. Choose factory pack colors so that you won’t have a difficult time matching colors when you need touch ups.

    • 12

      Choose exact dimensions and locations of your race car numbers for placement on the door panels, the roof and the hood. Choose the spots for the paid sponsor logos based on the agreements you made with your sponsors. Determine the size of the logo. The logo needs to be seen from a mile away by fans watching or big enough to display well on television if you are lucky enough to get coverage.

    • 13

      Finalize your design scheme. Les Miller, creative director for PCG-Campbell, advises to curb your creativity if you are looking for sponsorship or have sponsorship already. Keep the design scheme simple and clean. Avoid gaudy designs that will take your fans' eyes away from the sponsorship logos. Map out the destinations for the stripes, scallops, lightning bolts, checkers and fades. Use them sparingly to avoid clutter.

    • 14

      Go one or two steps brighter on the color scale than the logo colors given by your sponsor or for the colors you might have considered. This makes the colors visible for fans sitting in the nosebleed seat sections.

    • 15

      HIre the crew that will initiate the paint job only after you have gotten recommendations from other race car owners. Don’t use price as a leading requirement in your decision. Look at samples.

    • 16

      Buy single-stage catalyzed urethane paint. Kevin Culver, owner of Portland based Straight Line Body of Paint, explained in “Stock Car Racing Magazine” that If you get bored with your design after a few months, it will make it easier to repaint your new paint scheme at a later date.

    • 17

      Review your paint job from a distance when it has been applied. Don’t go by what you see up close. To the race fans in the stands your car will look different than it does to your pit crew.

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  • Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images

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