Flying Lotus

Just because you paint your car like a Lotus F1 racer, doesn't mean it'll handle like one.

In-progress work on the #12 JPS NASCAR Lotus

I messed around with the idea of showing work-in-progress shots as I muddled around with ideas on my latest car, the #12 John Player Special Lotus NASCAR Renault.

I started out just by testing how much of a pain it would be to do the trim.

Next, I worked on more of the trim, and getting the primary logos on there. I made the famous JPS logo, and also spelled out "John Player Special," adding some serif to the font as a custom logo, since all the fonts in the game are sans-serif.

I already had a Goodyear font I had made by making a custom logo of individual letters around a circle, then deleting the circle. A couple triangles make a "good enough" version of the little shoe logo in the middle. Once you have one made, you can then distort it to fit over any wheel arch and change the color to match the paint scheme of every car you work on relatively easily..

Later, I made up some details for the front grill work, and added a bit more of the golden trim to the top of the hood. I also threw in a manufacturer's name and some associate sponsors.

After that, I added the small basic sponsors that are on every car in NASCAR, to give it a more realistic look to it.

In the end, I decided to move the Olympus Cameras associate sponsorship from the quarter panel to the main siding. I figured JPS didn't need to be spelled out on the side. Those who got it, got it. I also messed with the main logo sizes a bit, just as a matter of personal taste.

#12 John Player Special Lotus NASCAR

Going back to my speculative paint schemes, I decided to convert the famous John Player Special paint scheme that Lotus used to run into a NASCAR. Making the JPS logo took a bit of thought with the basic shapes in the paint scheme, but I think I did a pretty good job with it.

#12 Ford Lotus NASCAR

Sometimes it's fun to try speculate as to what other famous motorsports liveries or paint schemes would look like in NASCAR. Lotus has a long and varied history in racing, mostly focused around open wheel racing. They ran Formula 1, and also made a successful go of the 1965 Indy 500, hiring NASCAR's Wood Brothers team to pit them.

One of their more famous paint schemes involves British racing green, with yellow racing stripes, and the number in the classic white circle. I chose to make the first attempts into Fords, due to Ford's history both with NASCAR and Lotus.

I decided to make another version with some other sponsorship. Olympus Cameras has sponsored them in the past, and I own an Olympus, so I went with that. Obviously I put huge amounts of thought into this, heh.

Lotus and the Wood Brothers, together again!

EDIT: I later made a model using the black and gold John Player Special paint scheme for a followup Lotus NASCAR