The Backyard – Give Me a Mid Paint Job Over a Vinyl Wrap

Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard!

I know this opinion probably makes me sound like an old man yelling at clouds, but I’m going to own it anyway:

Give me a mediocre paint job over a decent vinyl wrap probably 80 percent of the time.

This goes for both full-size vehicles and R/C. Maybe even more so with full-size stuff. But seeing as this is an R/C column, we’ll keep it in our lane here.

Now, before anyone grabs their pitchforks, let me say this upfront—I absolutely understand the appeal of vinyl wraps and RTR-style finished bodies. They’re convenient, they look clean, and there are some genuinely good looking ones out there. Modern printing quality is excellent, and a nicely wrapped body can absolutely look sharp.

But man… I just love the personality of paint.

Even an okay paint job.

Heck, sometimes even a downright questionable one.

There’s just something about seeing a body that somebody actually took the time to mask, spray, back, maybe mess up a little, maybe improvise a fix on—it gives the vehicle character. It feels individual. It feels like theirs.

And in a sea of generic swooshes, fake vents, tribal graphics, checkered flags, and “extreme motorsports energy drink” styling, even a simple one-color paint job can stand out nowadays.

That individuality matters to me.

And of course, this isn’t to say I don’t appreciate truly great paint work. Quite the opposite. As long as I’ve been in this hobby, seeing what some painters are capable of still blows my mind. There are people out there doing things with an airbrush that barely seem possible.

That stuff will never stop being impressive.

But even beyond the elite-level painters, I miss the era where everybody painted bodies.

Go look at old hobby photos from the ’80s and ’90s. It’s glorious. Bright colors, weird fades, hand-cut masks, funky graphics—everybody’s stuff looked different. Even race vehicles had personality.

It stayed that way through a lot of the early 2000s too, but somewhere around then we started seeing that very polished “performance motorsports” look take over. You know the style I’m talking about. Aggressive angles, generic race graphics, giant swoops, everything looking like it belonged on an energy drink-sponsored side-by-side.

Then RTRs exploded in popularity, vinyl wraps became easier and more common, and by the mid-2000s into the 2010s, that style was everywhere.

And again—it looked good. That’s not really the issue.

But it also started making everything look a little… same-y.

Thankfully, I do think things have shifted a bit again in the 2020s. We’re seeing more personality return. More retro-inspired looks. More simple color schemes. More bodies that stand out because they don’t look like a rolling sponsor package.

Whether that comes through traditional painting or just more thoughtful body design and graphics, I think it’s a good thing.

So I’ll end my little “old man rant” with this:

Painting bodies is—and probably always will be—a bit of a pain in the butt. Even people who are good at it still screw things up sometimes. Paint bleeds happen. Masks lift. You realize halfway through that you should’ve done the colors in a different order. It’s part of the experience.

But if you’re someone who has never tried painting a body because it sounds too daunting or you just assume it isn’t for you, I’d encourage you to give it a shot at least once. Especially with the awesome YouTube tutorials out there these days.

You might discover that there’s something really satisfying about driving around with a body that isn’t perfect… but is completely yours.

Even if the lines are crooked.

Maybe especially if the lines are crooked.

Or if you find out painting really isn’t for you, maybe look around on-line (or ask friends for recs) to see if you can find a respectable painter and contact them. The experience of having whatever you have in your mind come to life at the hand of an experienced artist is a lot of fun (and the results can be stunning)!

Alright that’s it for me this week.

Until next time, keep it on all four’s.