Painting my first car

What scale?  For 1/24 or 1/25, a good quality 000 (maybe 00000) brush and a steady hand should do it.

This has worked for me:

Find a pencil eraser, the kind I prefer are the real soft white kind. I have one of the long adjustable types that is only the eraser. I cut off about 1/2 inch to use.

Next, put a little bit of silver paint around the eraser, enough to stay wet, but not so much that it will drip or smear.

Finally, roll the painted part of the eraser over the raised detail. The eraser will contact only the highest points of the script/detail and the paint will come off, leaving a neatly painted detail.

Sometimes I will put some masking tape around the script on the body in case the silver paint gets a mind of its own, but with practice, you can get the paint only on the areas you want.

HTH

You can use enamals, personally I don't like them. I always use Tamiya Spray can laquers as they are very forgiving and flow very nicely out of the can.

A few things to remember:
Primer is almost always required. It evens out the color and will let you see any flaws before you start to paint.
Several light mist coats are better than one heavy coat. Usually I do 2 or 3 mist coats, followed by 2 heavier coats.
Sand between color coats; I use 2000 or 3000 grit to wet sand between coats. Usually it is only neccessary if you get some dust or other imperfections.
I generally use 1-2 medium coats of clear, only after the last color coat had had time to dry.
Make sure you let the paint fully cure. 2-3 days is fine for laquers, longer (1 week +) for enamals.
After the paint is cured, you can start to polish. I start with the roughest grit in the micro mesh polishing kit (3200?). Sometimes I go all the way up to 12000 grit, but sometimes it is OK after 8000. After the polishing cloths, I use tamiya's fine polishing compound, and after that I use Nano Wax. Go slow and polish one section at a time (hood, fender, trunk, etc..).

A couple of great links: Alex Kustov has some amazing paint, and I learned by following his directions and a lot of practice
http://www.italianhorses.net/Tutorials/Primer/primer.htm
http://www.italianhorses.net/Tutorials/PerfectPaint/paint.htm
Check out the website link below my signature and you can some of my cars.

Not being a car builder, I really admire acer's eraser technique for raised detail! Duly filed away!

Very surprised that your car came without a separate chromed gas cap. 

You might want to contact Gerald of Hawkeyeshobbies or Hawkeyehobbies, he is a member here and posts often. He deals in 'metal colored' paints and always has great ideas and advice. You can definitely find posts by him in the 'Airbrush' forum!

namrednef wrote:

Not being a car builder, I really admire acer's eraser technique for raised detail! Duly filed away! Very surprised that your car came without a separate chromed gas cap.  You might want to contact Gerald of Hawkeyeshobbies or Hawkeyehobbies, he is a member here and posts often. He deals in 'metal colored' paints and always has great ideas and advice. You can definitely find posts by him in the 'Airbrush' forum!

Lionking wrote:

Hi guys, I'm also about to build and paint my first model car (I'm an airplane man)... the model is Revell Mustang Boss 429 1/24 scale. My question is- How to achieve the glossy shiny Red color on the car? Is it only by adding gloss varnish to the paint before spaying? BTW I've tried to spray Revell Gloss Red No. 34 and the results were not satisfying.   Any good advice will be appreciated. Lionking