Base for Candy

[MikeInTheBay]

So I've seen a few posts in here suggesting that rather than just silver, it's potentially preferable to use a lighter color of what you're trying to candy in your base coat. Is it preferable to add like some of the candy concentrate into the silver base coat or add some flake into your colored base coat? Or am I thinking about this all wrong?

 

[Jim C]

yes you will have much better luck getting 1/2 way to your final color using the base color then do the candy with a less concentrated color mix. for apple red for instance i will put down a metallic base that is more of a magenta color. you can add candy concentrate to silver and that will work but you will end up having to use a lot of it making coverage not that great. your better off just picking a metallic base color.

 

[MikeInTheBay]

Thanks for the advice! Chad sent me a link to paintref.com, but that seems easier if I had a specific car's shade in mind-- do you have any recommendations for ways to approach that site, or other places where I can just see photos of different colors in maybe some sort of gradient spectrum?

And I guess the second part of the question is-- how do I estimate what halfway to a color is, or is that just a skill that comes with time? Let's say I wanted to end up with McLaren Belize blue -- if I was playing on a computer I'd start with the color I wanted to get the correct mix of hues and then just desaturate it and/or maybe increase the brightness. I'm almost kind of overwhelmed with choice at this point and any recommendation on how to move in choosing a correct shade to get the color I want is very appreciated (One thing I've considered is the fact that my first attempt with HoK teal I found slightly too green, so maybe if I just started with a very light blue base, they'd even out? Or it might be safer to just mix blue into the teal to get the exact color I want rather than messing with the balance.)

 

[Jim C]

imo when doing a real candy job you cant be too particular about the final color. i mean not to the point where your trying to do a match of another color. you pick the candy color you want and roll with it. if you want to tweak the color then sure, do that with mixing the dyes as that will have a greater effect on final color than messing with the base color. if your trying to really nail down a color then maybe your best bet will be to use the candy color in with your silver for a base. this way you just have one color to try to deal with. just mix the candy dye you want, put it in the base and over top.