Knight Models Spider-Man [WIP - Checkers and fonts, painted freehand on taxi with initial yellow coating]

At the moment, my hobby workflow involves concurrently painting three miniatures (preferably more) with each one from a different product range/line. So even as I work on the Ax Faction Victorian Darling, Nocturna Models Le Petit Chaperon and Super Dungeon Explore Ember Mage, I felt compelled to start painting yet another miniature. This might seem crazy but it actually helps me paint better by keeping things fresh and allows for ideas to gestate lest I rush into implementing them. In fact, new projects (and old ones restarted) are in the pipeline but that's a story for another day. 

Base for the Knight Models Spider-Man - WIP on New York City's iconic yellow taxi

Checkers and fonts largely finished but yellow coat at early stages with shadows and highlights yet to come

As you can see from the photos above, my latest addition to the paint table involves Knight Models Spider-Man or in this case its base which is a cut-off of a taxi. For reference on how to paint the iconic yellow taxi, I looked at two photos - one of a New York City taxi from the 1960s and the other of the logo found on taxis in more recent times. To give the base a unique look, I decided to combine both concepts namely the old checkered design and newer logo into a freehand painting session.

NYC taxi from the 1960s (top) and the logo found on current taxis (bottom)

How to paint the checkered design and taxi logo
Work on the taxi's iconic yellow colour is still at the early stages with just the basecoat and midtones painted. I still need to put in at least two shadows and some highlights. But the checkered design and fonts/logo on the taxi are largely finished with maybe some final touch ups towards the end. Below is a simple how-to guide on what I did to paint the checkered design and fonts/logo in freehand.

Photo montage of stages involved in the painting of the checkers and fonts

Step 1: Basecoat the body of the taxi in dark yellow with the help of a highly pigmented acrylic paint. This was done using the old Citadel Foundation Paint called Tausept Ochre.

Step 2: Apply a brighter midtone yellow (Citadel Iyanden Darksun and Golden Yellow mixture at about 50:50 ratio) on top of the basecoat while leaving the deep recesses at the basecoat colour. Use an HB pencil to mark out the areas where the checkered design and fonts/logo is supposed to be. You don't have to paint the mid-tone colours on these said areas.

Step 3: Paint over the pencil lines using a light grey acrylic paint (Citadel Fortress Grey) to provide a framework on to which to paint the blacks and whites of the checkered design and fonts/logo. Both white and light grey paint was used to paint the framework on the taxi's roof because the checkered design there is slightly different from that on the taxi's door. 

Step 4: Paint in the whites of the checkered design. Vallejo Model Color White was used. Light grey framework on the door was left untouched.

Step 5: Paint in the blacks of the checkered design. Vallejo Model Color Black was used. Similar to Step 4, the light grey framework on the door was left untouched.

Step 6: Paint the fonts/logo using Vallejo Model Color Black.

So there you have it, one way to approach the freehand painting of a checkered design and fonts/logo. Much work still lies ahead for the taxi - in addition to shadows and highlights for the yellow paint coat, there is also the metallic side-view mirror and door handle, the signage atop the roof as well as the windshield and windows. Of all the items in this to-do list, the last two is going to be very tricky. Well, I guess I can always mull over the problem as I move on the other stuff I am working on.