#11 Bill Elliott Budweiser Ford

 The third car I made was my first attempt at a reproduction. This is the #11 Budweiser Ford Thunderbird that Bill Elliott drove for Junior Johnson in 92, 93, and 94.

The number and stripe are easy enough for a beginner. The front grill was also a pretty simple matter with a reference image. I did have to modify the closest font for the writing to fill in some gaps in the "cool" style of lettering. Also, this is where I learned the game doesn't allow you to add spaces between words, which is a huge pain. I hope they fix that in the next version.

If you want to create a non-modern car, the game does not give you manufacturer logos, so it pays off to make the best custom logos you can early on so you can reuse them, like I did with the Ford logo here.

The game has a double upswing arrow that makes for a pretty good approximation of the Thunderbird logo (underneath the Ford symbol.) I just take one of those, create a 2-tone color between white and gray, then copy it, make it black, put it in the layer beneath, and increase the size slightly to give it a nice simple outline.

If I had another improvement to make to it, I'd create a custom Amoco logo as the associate sponsor. This would also open up the possibility of making the old Amoco car.

#9 STOP Racing Ford Thunderbird

For my second attempt, I decided to be a bit more blatant in my inspiration by Bill Elliott. I specifically tried to model the front after the old Ford Thunderbirds NASCAR used to have in the mid 80s, and tried to at least approximate Awesome Bill's general design. If I were to try to make one of his cars, I'd probably start from scratch though. Still, the general idea of this blog is to show my own progress, then provide tips based upon what I've learned.

 The lack of cursive fonts pretty much meant that doing an actual Coors Thunderbird was well beyond my abilities at the time. I may try to conquer it in the near future.

#9 STOP Racing Ford Fusion

This was the first custom car I worked on. I took the joke team name I created for my profile and applied it her. The car is vaguely inspired by Bill Elliott's red #9 Ford, but only in the slightest way.

Of course, after grabbing this shot, I decided to make a few improvements. I got rid of the Fusion grill and branding, but replaced it with my own custom Ford logo.

I Also re-did the front hood.

There's still plenty of work I could do on this car, but it still somewhat holds up for a first attempt.

Intro

This will be my website to share paint schemes, paint scheme techniques, setups, and other commentary on NASCAR: The Game.

Currently, I play the 2011 version of the game on PS3. A new version should be available at the end of 2012.