Step 15: Universal Primer
I was under the impression that this stuff was clear because of a quick test I did on cardboard, but it’s white. I wouldn’t have wasted time doing the antler tips grey if I had known. I also don’t even know if I needed to do this, or if the sandable filler would have worked fine, but I didn’t want to take the chance since I was going to use a really cheap black spray paint for the base coat.
Step 16: Base Coat
I did a pretty simple base coat using flat black in order to make the other colors pop and the hammer marks look dirty underneath. Unfortunately, and much to my chagrin, when I touched the paint some of it rubbed off in places. I wasn’t too concerned about this until I began painting silver on because the rubbed areas looked kind of silver/white, however as I painted more I realized it looked terrible so I did another coat of black over the whole thing. This time it all stuck.
Step 17: Helmet Painting and Weathering
I got some metallic silver paint and followed a video by Coast2Coast Customs on Youtube about weathering props and making them look metallic. Basically I took a chip brush and dry-brushed silver over all of the high points. While it looks decent in the picture, in real life there were only two colors: Black in the dents and silver on the high points. The silver paint was also extremely thin out of the bottle and the color was not solid, and I was really unhappy with how it turned out.
I decided to mix a grey the same color as my silver using black and white. Then I mixed the silver in so the paint would have a metallic sheen. I then took this color and brushed over all of the high areas and edges again, and places with more wear. I also shoved it more in the hammer marks in the raised areas, to simulate those areas getting worn down and polished more.
The next part of painting was weathering. It was pretty simple; I squirted some black paint into a Dixie cup and mixed it with water. Then I got a small paintbrush and went over the cut marks and around the raised portions to simulate areas that were harder to clean, and wiped it off with a shop rag. This left a dark area that looked pretty good.
Mistake 13: Mixing too much water and letting it saturate an area. If I left the wash too long and then tried to wipe it off, all of the other paint I had done came off too because it was water-soluble. I had to go back and repaint a few areas.
Then I got my shop rag and soaked it in the wash. I squeezed it out over the helmet in various places to simulate rain, let it sit for a minute or two, and gently dabbed it off. This left dark streaks all over the helmet, particularly in places that water would naturally sit.
Step 18: Antler Painting (Skip to the end of this step if you want to find out what I did that looked ok)
Oh man, this step was difficult. I painted each side about three times until I got something I could live with. The first attempt was going well until I attempted something which leads to
Mistake 14: Doing a brown/black wash. I only had one type of brown so I figured I could use black to darken it some. At first it looked alright, but as it dried it created an uncanny mud color. Seriously. It looked like somebody had gotten their hands all muddy and rubbed them all over the antler. And when I tried to dry off the wash, it peeled off a good amount of paint and the whole thing was crappy and I was very frustrated. If I was trying to make mud that would have been perfect, but alas, I was not.
I tried again, and did the same thing I did before. Unfortunately I was impatient waiting for the base color to dry, so when I went in with the dry brush it all just blended together into more or less one color.
So I started over. I painted the whole thing with a light brown base coat (
Mistake 15) and tried to paint over that, because in my previous painting experiences it was incredibly hard to paint over dark areas with light paint. However, the acrylic didn’t have this problem. What was the mistake here? All of the crevasses were filled with light paint with a darker brown on all the high areas, which is the exact opposite of what it should have been. So I did a brown wash, it looked crappy, paint rubbed off, and I started over.
This time I did a lighter brown base coat over most of the antler, a brown coat near the root, and an even lighter top coat. I did this because pretty much all of the deer antlers I’ve seen, in real life or pictures, are a white, grey/ light brown color. You can see the result in the picture below, also showing the updated silver and weathering. It looked ok, but there wasn’t much contrast or variation anywhere and it looked kind of ridiculous against such a dark helmet.
So I started over, mourning my wasted existence and wondering if I should have even done the project in the first place if I couldn’t complete one of the key elements. I was also getting tired of doing the same areas over and over, so I took it easy. I did a plain coat of the darker brown and let it dry while I watched TV. Then I went over it with a mix of light brown and dark brown, dry brushing over the whole thing. Then I used the light brown and dry-brushed everything again, concentrating on the tips of the antlers. Then I made a mix of white and light brown and did the tips and a few areas around the antler with that. I thought it looked acceptable (if not entirely realistic), and did the other antler the same way.
Finally I touched-up any areas of the helmet where I got antler colors, going over them with black and then dry-brushing with silver grey like before.
Step 19: Rust
I was wondering how to paint rust and thinking it sounded like a massive pain when I came across a post by Volpin Props about using Ferrous Powder. It’s just iron powder that you can paint on stuff and make rust with. I thought this sounded much more low-effort with much better results, and went out and got some along with a spray bottle that misted.
I got another one inch chip brush and a cup of water, a paper plate where I poured out some of the powder, some gloves, and a spray bottle full of Volpin Props’ rusting recipe which is comprised of:
-10 parts vinegar
-10 parts hydrogen peroxide
-2 parts lemon juice
-1 part salt
It smelled lovely. Fortunately I didn’t catch too much of the scent as I sprayed.
I took the paintbrush and painted water over areas where I wanted rust, making sure some pooled where water would pool in real life as well as areas that would be harder to clean. Originally I tried picking up the iron powder with another brush and flicking it off, but it wouldn’t stay on the brush. I also didn’t want to get the brush wet because then the powder would clump and not go anywhere.
What I ended up doing was brushing on water, picking up dust with my fingers, and rubbing my fingers together so the powder would fall over the areas I had painted. I then would spray with the rust accelerator mix. At first nothing much happened because I didn’t put enough powder, which I was ok with. I simply went over it with water again, sprinkled more powder, and sprayed. Repeated as desired. I didn’t notice much bubbling, but the color did change vastly from when I first sprayed and when I finished. Some areas I got too much powder on, so I carefully and gently wiped up excess with a rag while it was still wet.
After I was done and everything was dry, I got another shop rag and rubbed it over the rust, which let some of the silver shine through and removed chunks that wouldn’t have stuck long anyway.
Step 20: Protective Coat
I got some Krylon Satin clear coat and sprayed the whole helmet with it. I sprayed the antlers with a gloss because they looked incredibly dull, then I toned them down with the satin. The pictures really picked up the light, it looks a lot more natural in-person.
Finally I finished! Yay! One project under my belt
