Yay.
Ok, best trick with Faskolor (Parma/Createx) is not to thin with water but to use a household window/glass cleaner, like Windex. The key is to use one of the clear ones (I use an Armor All Automotive Glass Cleaner). It's essentially 95% water and the rest isopropanol alcohol, ammonia and ethylene glycol (anti-freeze). In my opinion, its exactly the same stuff Parma sells as "airbrush cleaner" except you can buy like 20 times more for the same price when it's called glass cleaner.
I thin all of my paints down in those tiny Dixie cups, and with most colors, it winds up being like a 3:2 paint to thinner ratio. I try to get the paint to look like the consistency of milk. I shoot most paints up around 35-45 psi, unless I'm looking for special effects or doing freehand details. I will go as low as 10 psi and as high as 60 psi for various different effects.
I spent just about 10 years painting with Pactra laquer RC paints (the original stuff), and thinning it with lacquer thinner. It was nasty stuff and in like 1989, I was having some odd nerve issues in my arm, and when I stopped painting, they went away. I tried the acryllics a few times, but found that they had really bad bonding properties with Lexan, especially the fluorescents. I threw out everything that wasn't a candy clear paint. Right now, I use aboout 95% Parma Faskolors, and a few Spaz Stix anodized clears and chrome. I also shoot the insanely expensive Alclad Lexan chrome sometimes, or to use it as a backing color for candies. I'd suggest the SpazStix chrome, as it is FAR cheaper to use, and easier to get.
A clean brush is always the best to paint with. I don't use a sink to clean, but I'm lazy. I run clean window cleaner through the gun and wipe the gravity cup down with a paper towel, until the spray is clean. If I'm going to use a darker color next, I dont worry so much aboout how clean the brush is. If I am doing fades and blends, I sometimes mix colors in the paint cup and blend right on the body as the old paint mixes with the new color. I'm working on a XXX4 body right now with about 7 different metallic blues in it that was done that way.
I've been painting R/C cars since 1983, with a bit of a hiatus in the late 90s. I paint for others on rare occasions, but mostly for myself.
Below are two recent bodies that I have painted. The buggy was my entry into the current (ending tonight) rctech.net 2-color Challenge. Two colors, no fades, no blends, only hard masked edges. Tough challenge; really makes you work the right side of your brain to not fall back on metallics, fluorescents, pearls or fades. I don't think a lot of people took it seriously, though.
The second was my last 12th scale body that I run on my CEFX c12. There is kind of a lot going on, but I was experiementing more with color and design than looking for a specific end product...
doug
(edit: for some reason, I clicked the thumbs down icon. whoops)