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Last minute metal armor painting http://forum.alienslegacy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18370	Page 1 of 2

Author:	seven [ Wed Jul 24, 2019 6:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Last minute metal armor painting
I have to paint my metal armor before saturday. my paints are humbrol enamels and my colors are base green matt 76,110,91,98,28. Im planning to airbrush the base green and hand paint the cano. Im wondering if there is a decent enamel thinner available at a placelike home depot that i can use to airbrush. Also suspecting that the original armor was hand painted for the base green and im considering doing that, but i only have 5 tins of matt 76, not sure if thatll be enough. Has anyone hand painted the base coat? will 5 tins be enough to do that? Are my color choices alright? Anything else i should know? Specific brushes to leave less brush strokes? Anyway to speed up the drying? should i clear coat? Ill post pics of my armor and process as soon as i have time. Thanks to my hommies who have already given me great advice, see you at supercon!

Author:	bigbisont [ Wed Jul 24, 2019 6:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
It took me 5 jars of the model master paint when I airbrushed my metal armor base coat, so I fear 5 tins won't be enough to hand paint. Keep in mind I did not thin my enamel at all, so maybe I used too much? Maybe if you plan the camo pattern in advance and don't try do full coverage you can stretch it out? Regarding the brushes, I wouldn't worry about it. I stressed over the same thing and people reminded me that the screen sets had plenty of brush strokes visible.

Author:	seven [ Thu Jul 25, 2019 1:49 am ]
Post subject:
interesting! you DIDNT thin the enamel but airbrushed it? were there any issues? I suppose I could just go for it since I do have 5 tins of Humbrol 76.

Author:	bigbisont [ Thu Jul 25, 2019 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re:
seven wrote: interesting! you DIDNT thin the enamel but airbrushed it? were there any issues? I suppose I could just go for it since I do have 5 tins of Humbrol 76. I had no issues at all. I used the biggest needle setup, ran CO2, and had the PSI kind of high I guess, but I got a nice even spread. Maybe it was just the brand though. I was researching airbrushing on some original humbrol brown bess and I saw several old posts here where people warn humbrol was a finicky paint to airbrush. One even said you had to get humbrol brand thinner for it to work correctly. Those were ancient posts so if you have newer tins, maybe the formula isn't so harsh? Hopefully someone with actual humbrol airbrushing experience can chime in.....in the next 24 hrs!

Author:	seven [ Thu Jul 25, 2019 11:17 pm ]
Post subject:
nice dude, i hand pinted the ab pad and im suppossed to be getting humbrol thinner in the nail today. fortunatly ive had an evile dead chainsaw hand to stress me out all day in the meantime.

Author:	seven [ Fri Jul 26, 2019 5:23 pm ]
Post subject:
UPDATE: Last night I hated humbrol enamel. now I love it. I DO NOT think that it was ever airbrushed as a base coat. One jar of HUmbrol thinner is not even enough for one tin, unless you have a great airbrush with tons of pressure. its possible to airbrush it, but I failed at it. I ended going to Wallyworld at midnight for a can of garbage OD Green spraypaint which turned out to be forest green. oops. its scratches right off. However I started painting the camo with Humbrol and holy shit its durable and awesome. barely any brush strokes using cheap walmart brushes. Im now filling in the parts of basecoat spray with matt 76 and its looking fucking sweet. Im definitly getting a lot of insights about how these were painted for the film. Some of the shapes that I see on Screen armor are not shapes that any human would make, they are the result of painting over an existing patch of darker basecoat. I think that they decided to lighten up the main base color at some point, before all armor was finished. the "slivers" of darker color are whats making me think that. I still think that airbrushing the basecoat is ideal, if you can figure it out, unlike me. But I gotta wonder if they just ordered crates of humbrol and said " keep painting and painting until no metal shows, no basecoat.Then they changed their minds and lightened some of it up for filming. Then the white lines hide the overlaps. As if someone said, this armor needs more contrast. Also matt 76 is A+.

Author:

seven [ Sun Jul 28, 2019 11:33 pm ]

Post subject:

I think it turned out pretty good but was definitely too bright. I hit it with a matt clearcoat then did a black acrylic wash to weather it. You can see the difference in the weathering on the greaves. Also the second picture down if after the weathering.
It now has some good looking scratches after a day at Supercon and somewhere around 20 beers.

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Author:	tacblue [ Mon Jul 29, 2019 7:33 am ]
Post subject:
Excellent work!!

Author:	seven [ Mon Jul 29, 2019 4:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re:
tacblue wrote: Excellent work!! Thanks dude, you were right about the humbrols, they go a long way and are durable. Im bummed that my base coat had to be a walmart spray can for times sake, but i covered it all in matt 76, whatever was showing still. Id definitly recommend if people cant airbrush it on to just do two full coats of 76 by hand. the enamel barely showes any brush strokes. The total paintjob on armor I would guess is about a weeks worth of after work painting. Unless your me and wait until the night before.

Author:	Noble [ Tue Jul 30, 2019 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
Looks good to me. The final black washing really is key. Is that Neil armor?

Author:	seven [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:28 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
Noble wrote: Looks good to me. The final black washing really is key. Is that Neil armor? Thats right Neil made this armor, its incredibly detailed and light and... durable (ask the guys who were at supercon). Its also thanks to corp Hicks (mercenary) for parting with this. the straps are from you matt. This is my second paintjob, the first armor i painted was made by Bigbisont and I liked it but it was very dark and based on some old Apone pictures. it was burned looking. I had used gloss clearcoat and lots of regular acrylic, whereas this time I used Matt clearcoat in many light layers and then flat acrylic watered down. Now that I've done this I do realize Id have rather done things in a different order. Matt 76, then, green-black, then doo-doo brown, THEN the light brown. Also the white squiggles are too uniform. overall I'm very pleased though. But this armor is 13" tall at center and I have a long torso and I'm 5' 11", 180cm, and I think one way or another I'm gonna have to get armor that is about 15" at center.

Author:	seven [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:34 am ]
Post subject:	Re:
Yeah mantroon the humbrols especially mix weird. I had the same color look a lot different in different areas. Last build I did I did a base layer of silver then clearcoat on top of that before I added base green and camo. Then I weathered it and then is naturally chipped down to the silver because the camo pain was acrylic with another clearcoat layer, so it chipped perfectly. Mantroon wrote: I've lost count of how many times I've had to paint armour last minute. I found I could brush on a base coat with about 3 tins of the matt green, if the base of the armor is black, I'm not too concerned with thin patches because of all the other colours that get layered on top. As for weathering, I use matte black acrylic spray, spraying short gentle burst from a distance, turn the armour as I go to get the paint to clump up on ridges and recess. Once that's done, I drybrush silver where I think wear and tear would be, dotting the silver paint at times to simulate paint chips. As long as the enamels are THROUGHLY mixed (otherwise you'll get a glossy patch here and there that never seems to dry), and if the weather is warm enough, I can pretty much do a set of armour in a day.

Author:	seven [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:36 am ]
Post subject:
I gotta thank tacblue big time for the detailed emails regarding humbrols, I love those paints. Again the ones I chose were ..matt 76,110,91,98,28.

Author:	schotti [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 4:56 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
Glad you like it mate,and the paint job looks great. You didn't go jumping through windows with it on did you

Author:	Obiwan kowalski [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 5:03 am ]
Post subject:
It looks even better up close in real life

Author:	tacblue [ Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:05 am ]
Post subject:
Where's the suited up pics?!

Author:	seven [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 12:44 am ]
Post subject:
Ill get some suited up pics uploaded, I was going to make a thread where I reshape and redesign my helmet lobe plate ect and refit the armor, it was originally built for someone a bit shorter then me, so I might recut or remake the connecting tabs between the front and back. I like the look of a high neck line. also might make longer elastic from the lower inside back that hold the shoulder straps. maybe I'll just do that all in this thread. I also ended up using acrylic n water to age the Noble grenade harness, so I'll post that too. I didnt jump through any windows, but i think I made one of the protestors shut the fuck up and got a nice little dent in my greave from it. Don't remember much, gonna have to hammer that out once I get my metal working tools. Ey schotti, I'm going all out, gonna make a dishing stump.

Author:

seven [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 3:11 am ]

Post subject:

I believe that my neckline needs to be higher, overall I need the front armor about two inches taller. my belt should be above the ab pad plate. thew ab pad sides are too wide. A slew of things need to be done to the helmet but firstly the lobe plate is too rectangular.

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Author:	schotti [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 4:41 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
I see what you mean,but thats the Problem buying a set of armour which was built for someone smaller than yourself. The Pauldrons are two tight they should float over the shoulders. I would change the Kontakt straps out and use elastick strapping that way they will kome better over the shoulder. The main armour is also two high but just a little,other than that it looks ok.

Author:	seven [ Thu Aug 01, 2019 9:53 pm ]
Post subject:
Agreed, i need to find a way to get it all dialed in more. I couldnt pass up the opportunity to buy metal armour. also gonna connect the front of the strap to the pauldron to keep it centered on my shoulder. Ive heard TE does that now and i did it on my pepakura armour. I know this armour will hold its value and hopefully i can use it to help afford or trade up to a larger set. I still love this set though, its my most prized possesion but eventually itll end up on someone around 5'7" or so. Ill keep updating as i make changes, really looking forward to sharing my helmet remodel

Author:

seven [ Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:48 pm ]

Post subject:

Helmet rebuild and reshape

I built this helmet very last minute and since then, the square shape has been driving me crazy.
I'm aiming for the shape of Hicks lobe plate. Mine was a pice of EVA foam glued on with two part epoxy and covered with "high bond - BONDO"
You can get the "high bond" version at Home Depot exclusively and its better then the regular stuff. The first step is to take a dremel with a cutting disc and chop off those corners. As I sand you can see the eva foam coming through.

((to upload these photos I sent them to myself with an iphone and it gave me a sizing option, I chose "medium"))

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Author:	schotti [ Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:54 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Last minute metal armor painting
Didn't you buy the helmet with the armour?

Author:	seven [ Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:
no the helmet wasnt included, built this one from scratch.

Author:

seven [ Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:08 am ]

Post subject:

lobe plate shaping

so ive removed the hard corners on the lobe plate and added a slant to the upper area. still i think it looks too boxy and the top sticks out too much. its like a big slab of rock. I think ill need to have the edges slant down more and bring the top closer in to the helmet shell. also I may remove the sharp edges on the sides and fill in the lower "scoop" where it meets with the front brim of the helmet.

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Author:

seven [ Fri Oct 11, 2019 12:59 am ]

Post subject:

paint and lobe plate redo

ive thinned out the lobe plate and rounded the corners.
used bondo high-bond. the top is still too fat.. going off the frost prop store chest plate.
Still needs more humbrol 76 matt green in spots, some satin clearcoat then black and brown acrylic wash.

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