Custom painting my m11x

So I have my m11x all taken apart right now and thinking of repainting it.

I have a few ideas I want to bounce off you guys to see what you think.

First, Make a Portal themed one. Paint it white (leaving palmrest black) then put on a aperture science logo on it along with the aperture science boot screen and win7 themes

Second, Camo . I like the camo look, but not sure if it would go well on a laptop.

Third, Red! I could have the only nebula red r1 around!

You guys have any ideas on what I could do?

 

Portal theme for sure.

 

Thats what I am thinking would look the best. Plus I can set the lights to orange and blue for the true portal theme.

Now I just need to find a aperture science acrylic logo to replace the alienhead with.

 

yea, Portal for sure.

i had always said i wanted to do this down the road.

i would love to see what it would look like, what kind of paint you use and how it holds up to daily abuse.

 

Well since the bottom plate is metal, the screen back is metal, and the rest of the casing is plastic (bottom, sides) Im going to have to get creative. But after working as a autobody tech/painter for a few years I should be able to get a good finish that stands up to use.

 

I think I got the aperture science logo figured out for it. I have some plexiglas at home. Going to take a hole saw and cut out a disc from the plexi. Then going to cut the alien head logo out and mount the disc in its place.

I can then paint the back side of the plexi white, and put the aperture science logo onto it with a vinyl decal.

Then it will light up when the computer is on

 

I would love to buy a broken machine just for the housing to play around with some mods myself! Good luck, and I was an auto body painter for about 5 years, but I don't have a booth or any clean air to work with now.

 

I have a small painting hood in my basement for small things. I will end up using that.

 

Gotcha, all I have left is a small compressor and a couple airbrushes. Are you planning on base/clear or single stage?

 

Haha it would be cool to do a portal theme and some how incorporate it to your desktop where as a theme the webcam would show whats on the other side of your computer through a portal on your desktop.

Its a stretch but either way, I vote for portals.

 

Going to end up base and clear since I have tons of 600$ a gallon ppg clear left from the last car I did.

 

I check this forum post hoping to see nekid pics of the m11x!

post some pictures!

 

R1 RED !
or white

Anyways, the portal idea seems good too

 

I will take some pictures tonight of the parts scattered about my office... the wife loves when there are computer parts everywhere

 

Thats funny, my wife hates it...very very much so... so much so in fact, I even had to get rid of my Desk... now we share a desk

I get a small shelf (3ft wide, 1 ft deep) in a closet for all my PC parts.

 

My wife really does hate it, but since I pay for the house and she wants a new car... I get to do what I want in one room of the house and whatever she wants in the rest of the house...
women, cant live with em, cant live without em (unless you want to be viewed as the creepy guy down the street)

 

Man, that is a cool idea. If there is anyone who could do it, it's ejohnson.

I vote for Portal as well. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
Good luck!

 

Going to do some sanding and masking off tonight, get it all prepped and ready to spray tomorrow. Put back together on friday night after its all dry and cured.

Going to mod the boot screen from the alienhead and the windows logo to the aperature science logos.

This is the goal for the boot up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EOc2gHpMd8

 

Hopefully you're not using the same desktop background though, right?

 

lol, no. I saw that background and thought it might the start of a really bad porno movie.... im going to use a black background with the aperature science logo on one of the corners. very pro like.

 

ok, the computer is all sanded and ready for paint!

Going to start that tonight when I get home from work.

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/102583355895978755542/September292011?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Here are some pictures of the laptop all taken apart, the screen and base prepped and ready to paint.

In the picture with the motherboard you can see the metal cage that acts as the computer main platform. It is held to the outer casing with little plastic studs that are melted over to secure it. I had to cut each one of these studs off to split the 2 parts. I would of just left it in there and taped off the back, but the vent area had a broken part, plus I wanted to leave the fan intake grill black.



So while browsing my paint options, I thought about finishes, satin, gloss or flat? Satin would look nice, but gloss would be oh so easy to clean.

 

So just as a little gimmick, Im going to theme my other m11x as a Black Mesa laptop (Aperture Science's main rival)

Oh, I also was able to order a new nameplate for the bottom It says APERTURE SCIENCE.

 

How did you order the nameplate?? I wanted one myself!

Mine only says m11x....

 

You gotta know people

And by that I mean I just asked dell and they are sending me a new one. should be here in about 2-3 weeks.

 

awesome dude! Sooo what's going on with the dock and the tablet then?

 

They are still being worked on, just on the back burning since I only have small spurts of time to work on them. Usually while the wife is in the shower, or when I get to work at 5am.

 

You have any pics of your progress on the Portal Theme? Been waiting for you to post them.

 

I will take some pictures in a little bit, I had some issues with "fish eye" spotting on the lower half of the base, so I need to strip it and redo that part. But the screen and the bottom cover are all done with the base coat, they just need to be cleared then sanded to a smooth finish and buffed to a high gloss.

 

OK, sorry for the lack of updates on this over the weekend. The wife decided that spending time with her was more important than painting my laptop.

I think she works the next 3 nights, so I should be able to get some things done then and get some updates.

I did get the base sanded down again ready to repaint that so it should be ready for clear coat tonight and re-assembly tomorrow.

 

Got the top end pretty much all done, just need to put it back together.

The bottom half has been giving me lots of problems. The paint has been cracking and not sticking right.... so I gave up on that bottom half and am going to use one of my other spare bases to try to paint. Hope that works out.

Here are a few pictures though.

 

That is looking ridiculously awesome there ejohnson, keep it up!

You've got me wanting to get a R1 and paint it up now...

 

Im going to order a r2 base soon to see whats possible for removing the "soft touch" stuff for painting. Im sure you r2/r3 guys would love custom colored aliens too.

If it all turns out good I may start doing this for people also, turn around time would be about a week I would say. This one is taking longer due to other obligations, but I should be able to strip and paint a full computer in 3 days.

 

Dude thats awesome man! For the portal theme is awesome but your not going to include the two colors (orange and blue)?

For me if i still had my m11x, I would paint the lid white, and replace the bottom chassis with metallic black (maybe, still iffy on the black) and then put any design that isnt decal on the lid in black

maybe the assassins creed logo on the white?

 

I am just going to set the lights to the blue/orange for it.

Thinking of just using alienfx lite so I can set the left speaker light to blue, then the orange would be the right speaker light.

I would really like to make somthing to change the lightup alienware under the screen to read Aperture Science. But, that will have to wait awhile till I finish up the rest of my projects.

 

I had that same idea ejohnson about alienfx lite and was trying to make my left speaker blue, right orange, then have each of them fade into orange/blue but for some reason alienfx keeps messing up for me when I try it and either only one speaker will work, or they will be out of sync and switching the same colors or what not .

 

Hmmm... Well that may hamper my plans, I will see if I can get it working right this week. Got to get this computer all put back together first.

 

THAT is amazing.

 

I am waiting on some new paint for the r2/r3 guys.... Its a soft touch paint, any color you want... but its over 100$ a quart, so Its going to be a special order thing it I start doing this for people.

 

Wow, amazing results ! It looks a way better in white than in black. I would do this if i didnt have the leather cover on my r1 ; anyways NICE JOB !

 

SWEET DUDE! +rep for awesomeness

 

The black one looks brilliant, you've got a great shine on it.

 

very awesome sir! just how i pictured it.

 

Looks good.
I did this to my M17x
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ack-nebula-red-lunar-silver-nvidia-green.html

It will be for sale soon so i can pick up a M11x, you can guess what it will happen to it too

Cheers

 

Nice, I think a green m11x might be my next paint job, but I want to get the soft touch paint in first. Then I need to find a r2/r3 thats out of warranty to paint.

 

Amazingly, thats the original paint, never polished or anything. I just keep it in a sleeve whenever I need to move it around... so its scratch free and perfect.

 

Any chance of you getting hold of a better camera and taking some super high reso pics? Want to see how the paint finish came out

 

Yeah I can do that on saturday night. Its not a dslr but rather a glorified point and shoot with a nice lens that I can use.

 

From what I can tell the m11x looks absolutely glorious, if Dell were carrying that colour option I'd choose it over the 'default' black any day, I'm really impressed. You certainly know your stuff!

Like BuToNz though, I'd really appreciated some higher resolution photos so we can see some real detail! (must be an UK thing!)

(Your m11x looks great, howabout giving the skirting board of your apartment the same treatment )