Project Punisher S13 Part 1: The Beginning

I've wanted to build and paint a D-Like S13 shell since they first released them.  I finally developed a concept that I liked and went to work.  I think that D-Like has the best looking S-13 on the market right now, and the fact that it comes molded with the great looking BN Sports body kit on it already makes it a great value.  If I had one gripe, besides worthless window masks (ok, that is two gripes), it would be how thin these bodies are in the bumper and rocker areas.  I'm sure it is hard to mold these things, but other manufactures manage to do a pretty good job of it.

I loved Rockstar Recovery Grape... before they discontinued it.  I always thought that the colors on the can would make for a great race car livery.

I also thought that the Team Yellow Onevia had one of the better Rockstar liveries.

And from there I had a solid foundation for a great mash up.

The body paint was pretty straightforward  I simply copied the Team Yellow scheme mostly, but substituted Tamiya translucent purple (backed in anodized silver + black) in place of the yellow panels.  But then came the hard part... decals.  I found a vector file from a Rockstar marketing site and used that as a base file.  I simply manipulated the colors to match the logo on the grape recovery can.

The hood needed something big and dramatic and after some searching, I decided on a cool rendition of the Punisher skull to go there.  I wanted to make the car into a fictitious Formula D contender, so I made a 2015 windshield banner... Pro, of course.  To make the best use of the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of inkjet vinyl, a few other sponsor logos and numbers were added into the mix.  It was a little tricky to get the colors to print out right, but I finally ended up with a sheet that I was happy with.

Here is a teaser shot of how the shell is shaping up.

Stay tuned for part 2...