Take the grips off, and paint them separate.

Lightly wet Sand the item with 400 grit sandpaper, so the paint sticks well.

I suggest using small toy model can spray paints.

They should have a nice dark metallic paints.


Avoid using the large can (home improvement store) paint.

That's pretty neat, where did you get it?

I would disassemble it as much as possible. Use black on the slide and frame, gunmetal for barrel, trigger, hammer, etc. And wood color for tbe grips.

If you want to weather it I would drybrush silver on the metal parts and use a black wash on the grips.

*Technically breaking law doing this, just a heads up.
I seriously doubt those concerned will notice though! I've done it many times

For a better finish, swap the dry-brushing step for brushing a crushed up pencil lead on. It gives a great metallic sheen and let's the black show though too. You WILL need to spray a top coat over it though.

If you want to weather the gun, the easiest way is to dry-brush using silver. I use Apple Barrel paints which are water based. I try to hit all the "high spots" on the gun which would show wear. A black wash on the wood and silver parts gets into the cracks and brings out the detail nicely.

For a better finish, swap the dry-brushing step for brushing a crushed up pencil lead on. It gives a great metallic sheen and let's the black show though too. You WILL need to spray a top coat over it though.

I agree with reaper, powdered graphite works GREAT in making a metallic paint look even more realistic! You can add a little at a time and rub it in, and remove it if you need to. Just be careful and add it a little bit at a time so you don't get excess powder on areas you don't want. Here's an example of a project I did a few years back. It's a Blade Runner PKD blaster I picked up used; whoever assembled the kit pretty much painted the whole thing other than the trigger guard and grip butt plate flat black with either enamel or acrylic paint. I repainted the trigger guard, the butt plate and the ejection port with a stainless steel enamel and then painted over all the flat black areas with clear gloss acrylic. I then used a number of layers of powered graphite on the guard, butt plate, ejection port and barrel sections (which were still painted black.) After a bit of other weathering, this is what I ended up with, just to give you an idea (sorry the front end is a bit out of focus):




I really liked how the "texture" came out. It's not perfect, but it's a LOT better than the original flat black paint job that it had!

Powered graphite can be found at most hobby and hardware shops, or you can scrape or crush pencil lead if you want.

-scoff