Exactly how do you paint designs in cars. I know you have to tape off areas etc.

But for example if I wanted to paint somthing all black and have a red dot in the middle. Would I paint my object all black first. Then tape the intired thing with that blue painteres tape? Then use a razor blade to cut my circle in the tape and peel that off exposing the area for my next layer of red paint. Once that drys pull the remaining tape off and clear coat?

What makes the blue painters tape so special if this is the tape that should be used?

the pros use an air brush to get the fine details into paint.......

if u wanted to do somthing like this, you would tape off the purple area, paint the yellow then do the reverse and spray on the purple!
http://www.racehome.com/images/wcnats/wcncoolpaint-sm.jpg

so they wouldn't just spray the whole thing yellow first then tape off the flames and spray the purple on top of the yellow?

If they taped the purple part off and painted the yellow then taped the yellow part off wouldn't you run the risk of letting some of the primer exposes inbetween the purple and yellow

Unless you made sure you overlapped some?

Wouldn't you paint everything purple, then tape off the flames, then spray the yellow?

:edit: You beat me to it.

What i've seen done is the they will spray the car in the bas coat first, which is the yellow/orange base, then what they will do is tape of anything that they dont want to get color of the flames on there. Different people have different techniques. One person i saw use thin masking tape to draw out the flames then paint. Another guy i saw uses a stencil he made & does it by airbrushing the flames. If you check out shows like, Rides, Overhaulin, American hot rod, shows like these on TLC & discovery will show how they paint cars & flames & junk.

Yea I watch those shows and I get the basic gist but wasn't sure of exact specifics.

The blue tape is an easy release tape , it is removeable without leaving residue behind as long as it is left on for less than say....2 days.

when we do a graphic/flame job at our shop here what we do.
- spray the base color first and clear coat
- wet sand the clear lay out flames/graphics with a vinyl 1/8" tape
-use a flexible 1/4" tape to go around the design or we use a white transfer paper to lay over the graphic and razor blade the graphic/flame out.
-spay graphic/flame color clearcoat
-wetsand clear coat and pinstripe then re-clearcoat
but u have ot be careful using a razorblade on paint because if you press to hard to will go thru the basecoat and peel all your work back up.