Paint it black! Matt black supercars and DBS blacks

Hi, all... for various reasons, I've been thinking about how to achieve a "Supercar Matt Black" finish, and also how to paint my DBS. I've seen a few of these supercars in matt black recently: in real life, some are painted in matt, others have a plastic film applied to dull down the paint. I've peered pretty closely in sunlight and shade, and the thing that comes across is the apparent "depth" of the finish, and the fact that it's completely smooth, whilst still being matt (no visible surface texture). For the DBS, I'd like to do the "Carbon Black" finish, which has special paint and wheels, and carbon fibre sills etc. There isn't a lot of reference material available online yet, but what there is shows a very subtle black, with very little flake. What I've tried to do below is present some samples... I'll tell you at the end what I'm going to use to achieve these effects, but I thought the reference material might help some of you to make yor own calls. All of the samples are pieces of plastic drainpipe, primed with auto primer (Halfords grey) that has been lightly sanded with 6000 git micromesh. I'd prep a real body in more detail, but life's to short to do it for a mule! All of these are painted with Zero Paints products... you could have the same effect with other brands, but this is my brand of choice.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/dull1/web.jpg
Left to right: Matt Black; Matt Black with a brushful of the pigment from Graphite Grey; Jet Black with a spot of Mica Silver (very fine flake); Jet Black with a fingernail of real graphite powder (sold as lubricant in my hardware store)

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/sunny2/web.jpg
The same order, in sunlight. You can just about see that no.2 (graphite grey) is a bit lighter and smoother, and no.3 (mica) has a bit more sparkle

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/sunnycoatedall4/web.jpg
With clearcoats. The two on the left are using 2K Matt clear, but only over half the surface. I've never used this before, so it's a learning curve. The two on the right are "Carbon Black" candidates, and are using the usual gloss 2K clearcoat. You can definitely see the difference on the coated and noncoated matt finishes. In this image, the difference between the two "Carbon Blacks" on the right isn't very obvious.

Finally, here are the finishes in more detail. Each image shows the finish in full sun and in shade:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/mattblack/web.jpg
Pure matt black, with 2K matt clearcoat on one half

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/mattblackgrey/web.jpg
Matt black with a touch of graphite grey pigment, with 2K matt clearcoat on one half

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/jetblackmica/web.jpg
Jet black with a brushful of mica silver residue, with 2K clearcoat

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100254/jetblackgraphite/web.jpg
Jet black with graphite powder lube, with 2K clearcoat.

MY conclusion from these is:

for a matt black supercar, I will use the "matt black plus graphite grey" mix, with a VERY light matt clear coat

for the Carbon Black DBS, I will use the "jet black plus graphite powder lube" mix, with the 2K gloss clear coat.

Thank you for your attention - I hope I've wasted time so you don't have to!

bestest,
M.

Nice demonstration, can't wait to see this finished model. The largest piece of pipe seems to have the smoothest finish. I thought the Carbon Black DBS edition was just a super rich black glosscoat with little to no metallic in it. See link:

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/03/aston-martin-dbs-carbon-black-review/

Also, at some time, Zero Paint offered a matt black finish in a limited production run.