Plan Paint Like A Pro

Most will agree that paint sets the tone and personality of the car. Too much color or too many graphics become cluttered and all those built-in details tend to get lost in a quagmire of hues. No matter how developed your concept or plan, choosing the correct color and an interesting use of graphics can be the most frustrating and questionable part of any project. You wind up second-guessing yourself all the way to the paint booth.

It would be a whole lot easier if you could see what you're getting before you get it. House of Kolor (a division of Valspar), has a brand-new software program called Digital PaintBooth that allows you to digitally color and apply graphics so that your PC becomes your spray gun and masking tape. With this program, you can browse House of Kolor paint charts, create two-tones and fades, or add graphics with pre-generated images. Lay a color on sheetmetal that you never thought of before or add flames in unimaginable places. With Digital PaintBooth you can see it before you paint it!

Upon seeing this magic at work, we contacted Carter Hickman, the Art Director for this program, and he was good enough to apply an image of our Chevelle to the PaintBooth so we could test drive this program for ourselves. What a cool ride!Installing PaintBooth offers four different options at the top of the program portals to a new dimension in musclecar planning. Clicking on the Paint icon displays a huge pallet of Designer Pearls, Kandy Basecoats, and Shimrin Metallics. With one quick click of the mouse, we found ourselves trying colors that we would have never have thought to include in any rendering.

The second option, Graphics, provides the added dimension of pre-generated designs and color breaks for multiple color concepts. It also provides six alternatives in each of the two-tone color breaks--graphics such as scallops and flames. Once you've selected the basic Graphic design, you can opt for unlimited variations on a theme as the use of Graphic vertical, horizontal, position, and rotation scales allow you to custom-tailor the program to your specific application. Again, applying one or two colors to the graphic is as simple as a choose-and-click process. We found ourselves further enhancing the add-on graphics with the various fade options, and you can add shadow effects and pinstriping, as well.

Hard-core creative types can venture one button further to the Draw icon. This portion of the program allows complete creative freedom to design your own paint scheme and graphics, as the cursor becomes your masking tape and spray gun. You can lay color above and below, and adjust the width for your desired effect. We found ourselves producing concept images of our Chevelle that were visions of a '70s psychedelic flashback. Just about anything you can image is possible to recreate with PaintBooth.

It is by far the most entertaining method yet to plan a paint scheme and gives visionally challenged types (like us) the ability to work like pros--no more second-guessing all the way to the paint booth. See it before you paint it. So which plan have we picked for our Chevelle? You'll have to catch an issue of CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE and see.