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JimmyK's Nascar Racing 2003 Season Painting Tutorial

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     There are as many different ways to make numbers as there are painters. If the car I'm painting is a request I usually make numbers as a separate image and then copy and paste them into the car.  If the request has a specific style of number in mind and it matches a Winston cup car's numbers, I'll download if possible.  I'll try to cover a few ways to make or get numbers.

    The easiest way to get numbers is to download them. I have a couple of sites that I use if I want to get a number that Winston cup car really uses. The links are on the links page at the end of the tutorial. The main advantage to down loaded numbers is that they already come with outlines built in, and all you have to do is resize them to fit your car. The bad thing is that some, not all, sites don't post their numbers in layers so it is hard to change the colors. Not a big thing when you consider that no-one has to share in the first place. Here's a big thank you to those that do! THANK YOU!

    Probably the most frequent post I've seen at the different painting forums I go to is "how do I make the multicolored numbers?" Here's what I do. Start by making a new image. I make one that's 500X500 pixels. Then add 2 more layers. The number of layers depends on how many outlines you want on your number. Now add in the text using as big a font size as you can. I usually make them around 250. I know the sizes in the PSP text tool boxes only go up to 72, type over it and you can make any size you want. There's a couple of choices that you have to make when adding text. They're listed along the bottom of the tool's window.

In this case the "create as" boxes for "Floating" and "antialias" are checked. Now's the time to skew or slant the number if you want. Here's where different painter do different things. Here's the first train of thought. Go to effects at the top tool bar, scroll down to Geometric effects and select skew. Another window will open and you can type in what amount of skew you want. a - number will give you a forward slant. Keep the vertical number at 0. Center the number again and use the magic wand to select the number. If its a multi digit number hold down the shift key when selecting. Once you have all the digits in the number selected expand the selection by 5 pixels. Now go to the layers tool bar and select the layer below the one that has the number. Select the flood fill tool, choose the color of your choice and then fill the selection. You should see your original number with an outline. Now expand the selection by 5 pixels again, and once again select the layer below the one you just filled. Flood fill with the color of your choice. Now you should have a number with 2 outlines. If you want more outlines just repeat the expand by 5 pixels, choose next lower layer and flood fill routine.  After you have outlined all you want you "merge visible" (found under the layers drop down) all your layers. You now have a very large outlined and slanted number. Here's why some painters don't like this method. The layers look jagged. If we were using the number as is this could be a problem, but its way to big for the car. We need to downsize it. I find a 85 X 72 number is about right. Once we resize we see another reason why some guys don't like this method. The outlines are much smaller and don't show up as much as some would like, but the jagged edges are pretty much gone.

    A second method of skewing the numbers are to make them as Vectors instead of floating selections. This method works pretty well and is the method I've been playing with. Some feel that by skewing a vector image you get less jagged edges than by skewing a raster image as above. The hard part about skewing a vector image is that you have no place to punch in a number for the amount of skew.

    Once you have skewed to where you want it convert the vector to a raster and add the outlines as above. I find that this method works pretty good, but has the same drawbacks when you resize.

    Here's what I do. I make a new image with as many layers as I need for the number I'm making. For this car I made 4 layers because I wanted a number with 3 outlines. In the top layer I make my number using a 250 font size. I don't favor either skew method, both work. Since I want to skew differently on both sides I'll use the top method to skew my numbers so I can get the same amount of slant on both. Once I get the slant I want I cut the number out and paste it as a new selection. Then I resize it to 73 X 60. Cut or copy this back into the top layer where you made the original. Then expand the selection by 2 pixels, select the next lower layer, flood fill. repeat for the other 2 layers. The reason I do it this way is that I get nice sharp outlines compared to the outlines that are resized after they are made.

Doesn't look too bad. I want the opposite tilt on the other side so I'll repeat the process but skew the number the other way. This side was skewed -20 so the other side will be skewed 20. The roof number is the same as the driver's door number but resized a bit bigger. I made it 110% of the driver's door. Here's what it looks like so far:

We have to add the numbers to the front and back now. Copy the number from the driver's door then select the layer we added way up at the top of the list. The reason that its up there is that the numbers will show up over everything else.  Using the selection tool make a rectangle over the passenger's side headlight the size you want the number here to be. Then use the "paste into" function found under the edit drop down tool bar. Repeat for the rear number with 1 change. Make the selection wider than it is tall. That way the number will still show up "square", yes there's still "squeezing" of the decals and numbers pasted on the back of the car.

  I did the rear decals separately and pasted them into a selection the same as I did the numbers.

Just a few more details and we are done. We need to add the driver's name and put something on the trunk  For the trunk I like to add my own logo, cheap advertising! We'll have a look at adding tape as well.