superjedi
Sr Member
Hi all,
Well, I have some extra time this holiday week, so after a long debate, I decided to weather my Coyle v4.x C & S blaster. This was Rich's latest plastic version, before the "W" pics appeared.
(What? What pics? I don't know what you're talking about :lol )
I wanted to make it "service-weathered" but not all rusty and forgotten looking.
I started by trying to figure out a good metal shade to use on the Steyr receiver. I had some Testors metalizer sprays from previous model projects, and tested a couple different shades on some scrap plastic. The color I finally settled on was Titanium #1454. I had some Stainless Steel, but it looked waaaaaaay too light on my test piece. I didn't want to just settle for a dark metal shade, but wanted to make it look just slightly abused. Like it had been used for a while in a dank, rainy futuristic environment. . . hmm, sounds like a movie or something.
I field stripped the blaster before painting and masked off appropriate areas. Rich's attention to detail makes disassembly extremely easy, as almost everything is held together using real screws. :thumbsup
I tested a few different ways to make the metal look slightly discolored and pitted, and wound up going with this method:
I ground up some pastels (brown and blue-gray) onto a large sheet of sandpaper. I ground up quite a bit. After that, I used a soft 1-inch paintbrush to gather the pastel dust into a good size pile on the sandpaper. I took this mixture out to my paint area (my balcony).
I sprayed on the Testors Titanium, and IMMEDIATELY sprinkled pastel powder onto the surface using that 1-inch paintbrush. Some particles were super-fine, and some were a little coarser. I let the paint dry for a couple of hours, then gently buffed it using an old cotton T-shirt. I made sure to paint all the Steyr parts together, so they'd wind up with the same tone.
This came out so well (IMHO) that I wanted to use the same technique on the Bulldog parts.
From the reference pics, it was hard to tell if these were the exact same shade or not. I decided the Bulldog parts were a tad lighter than the Steyr parts, so I looked at my spray tests, and found that Testors Magnesium #1453 gave a good contrast. I used the same technique on these parts. Spray, then sprinkle in the pastel dust right away. After drying/buffing, the effect was really like looking at old worn metal.
For the remaining black plastic parts, I chipped the finish with an X-acto blade, and used a fine grade sanding stick to rough up the surface and add some scratches.
The last mod I wanted to do was pretty scary, at least for me. I wanted to alter the buttplate to make the back end curve in, to match the curve of the backstrap. It took me a day or so to decide to actually go ahead and do this.
I used my Dremel with a small sanding drum, and roughed out the curve. I finished it off with progressively finer grades of sandpaper using a sanding block. I think it came out OK. I also added a .020" styrene plate to the bottom, just to give it a little more thickness. I redrilled the holes for the 2 attach screws, then primered the piece and repainted it using metalizer Stainless Steel #1452, buffing after it dried. For the final step, I painted the buttplate bottom with flat black acrylic, and scratched and chipped it using an old dental tool. Then I sanded it slightly so the chips weren't so hard-edged.
So there she is. A well-used replicant hunter.
Thanks for looking.
Eric
Well, I have some extra time this holiday week, so after a long debate, I decided to weather my Coyle v4.x C & S blaster. This was Rich's latest plastic version, before the "W" pics appeared.
(What? What pics? I don't know what you're talking about :lol )
I wanted to make it "service-weathered" but not all rusty and forgotten looking.
I started by trying to figure out a good metal shade to use on the Steyr receiver. I had some Testors metalizer sprays from previous model projects, and tested a couple different shades on some scrap plastic. The color I finally settled on was Titanium #1454. I had some Stainless Steel, but it looked waaaaaaay too light on my test piece. I didn't want to just settle for a dark metal shade, but wanted to make it look just slightly abused. Like it had been used for a while in a dank, rainy futuristic environment. . . hmm, sounds like a movie or something.
I field stripped the blaster before painting and masked off appropriate areas. Rich's attention to detail makes disassembly extremely easy, as almost everything is held together using real screws. :thumbsup
I tested a few different ways to make the metal look slightly discolored and pitted, and wound up going with this method:
I ground up some pastels (brown and blue-gray) onto a large sheet of sandpaper. I ground up quite a bit. After that, I used a soft 1-inch paintbrush to gather the pastel dust into a good size pile on the sandpaper. I took this mixture out to my paint area (my balcony).
I sprayed on the Testors Titanium, and IMMEDIATELY sprinkled pastel powder onto the surface using that 1-inch paintbrush. Some particles were super-fine, and some were a little coarser. I let the paint dry for a couple of hours, then gently buffed it using an old cotton T-shirt. I made sure to paint all the Steyr parts together, so they'd wind up with the same tone.
This came out so well (IMHO) that I wanted to use the same technique on the Bulldog parts.
From the reference pics, it was hard to tell if these were the exact same shade or not. I decided the Bulldog parts were a tad lighter than the Steyr parts, so I looked at my spray tests, and found that Testors Magnesium #1453 gave a good contrast. I used the same technique on these parts. Spray, then sprinkle in the pastel dust right away. After drying/buffing, the effect was really like looking at old worn metal.
For the remaining black plastic parts, I chipped the finish with an X-acto blade, and used a fine grade sanding stick to rough up the surface and add some scratches.
The last mod I wanted to do was pretty scary, at least for me. I wanted to alter the buttplate to make the back end curve in, to match the curve of the backstrap. It took me a day or so to decide to actually go ahead and do this.
I used my Dremel with a small sanding drum, and roughed out the curve. I finished it off with progressively finer grades of sandpaper using a sanding block. I think it came out OK. I also added a .020" styrene plate to the bottom, just to give it a little more thickness. I redrilled the holes for the 2 attach screws, then primered the piece and repainted it using metalizer Stainless Steel #1452, buffing after it dried. For the final step, I painted the buttplate bottom with flat black acrylic, and scratched and chipped it using an old dental tool. Then I sanded it slightly so the chips weren't so hard-edged.
So there she is. A well-used replicant hunter.
Thanks for looking.
Eric
