I am painting my headlights and want some suggestions on what would look best on my car. I first was going to go matte/flat but didn't like the look, also didn't want to go gloss black. I just repainted my lights in a semi gloss black and left the projector shroud chrome but painted the outside edge of the shroud black. I think this will go well with my grill and fog trim but I am thinking about going all black? Also I just had some graphite vinyl laying around and tried a eyelid on one of the lights, should I keep it?


Original Paint Job (one gloss and one matte)


Repainted Lights (SemiGloss, partially painted shroud, tinted reflector and graphite eyelid)



Comparison with and without eyelid



My car for reference

 

I personally think the eyelid direction is nice. It adds some subtle contrast to it and stands out a bit better than all black

 

I like the semi gloss with eye lid. Should look great

 

Blacken more on that amber reflector.....

 

Agree w/ all 3 replies, looks good OP.

 

+1

The satin finish is subtle, and the graphite eyelid swipe is perfect, IMO. Particularly with your color car. Very tasteful.

(jelly)

 

Love the eyelid, (writes it down on the to do list ...)

 

I have the same color car. Looks really good!! Make sure you post pics after the job is done.

 

This is going to look FANTASTIC! That graphite eyelid will help align the contrast between the paint, and black gloss grilles. Keeping the shroud chrome is a classic and is something I plan on doing when painting my housings.

+1 for completed pics. I can't wait to see the end result!

 

lol, I swear every time I plan to do something with my car, you are first to the idea. I am probably getting my lights done by JPS this summer when I can leave the car for a few days. My plan was to keep the tiny bit of chrome (eyelid) and paint the rest the same as the midnight grill. I also will be replacing the chrome rear lip with a body-colored one.

Just for comparison, here is mine:

 

Finished part 1 painting, moved on to part 2 hid projector upgrade. I installed clear lenses and played around with the spacing and got some color but not a razor sharp cutoff like I wanted. See bottom shot of picture below.



I then saw what the problem was, the high beam shield. It was causing the blurry cutoff on the left size. I decided to drill it off and below are the results. I think it is perfect with one spacer, if I add more I get more color but at the cost of sharpness.

 

Looks good ^^^ How thick would you say 1 spacer is in mm? Mine came w/ a metal ring for the spacer but decided not to use it and just doubled up the thickness of the cardboard.

 

Metal ring spacer is 2.2mm. I don't get any color or sharpness with only two cardboard spacers.

 

Looks great, only thing I'd change, remove or paint over the reflector (unless you're concerned with it being a safety issue)

 

Any pics of how you cut the high beam shield to improve the cut off