Distribución espacial y temporal

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

ACRYLIC GLOSS GEL MEDIUM

ACRYLIC STRING GEL MEDIUM (OPTIONAL) LARGE CARDBOARD BOX (OPTIONAL) RED, YELLOW, BLUE ACRYLIC PAINT LONG HANDLED PAINTBRUSH

78 | WEATHERING TECHNIQUES The thickness you’re after with your mix is something akin to liquid cold

medicine—syrup-like in consistency but not a gel.

Another thing to try out is acrylic string gel. As the name implies, this increases the viscosity of the paint, making it it more gel like in its application and creating “strings” of paint when flung or splattered (B & C). While not absolutely necessary, this can add a bit of depth to your splats. It’s easy to overdo the look and end up with a bad Halloween prop, so do plenty of tests with different mixtures before tackling a splat job on your finished replica.

A

B

C

D

Acrylic mediums will help out a lot here. Gloss medium works great for the fresh splats (A), while matte medium will keep the browner blood looking more flat and crusty (D). Both will change the viscosity of the paint, and therefore how it impacts the surface of your prop. These will also temporarily lighten the pigment you’re mixing up, but the final cured paint will settle back to its initial shade. Make sure to test out whatever mix you concoct. Cheap acrylic paints have a tendency to cure to an entirely different tint than their liquid state. Reds in particular may shift more to purple or even pink.

79 | WEATHERING TECHNIQUES

You’ll need a paintbrush with a fairly long handle and a large set of bristles to hold in all your liquid paint. Grab a ruler or some other straight edge – just about anything that’s sturdy and flat will work – and hold it a few inches above the surface of your prop perpendicular to the direction you want the splatter to go.

Load the paintbrush up with paint so it’s damp but not dripping. Carefully bring it over to your prop and line up the brush and handle with the direction you want your blood splat to go. In one quick motion, strike the handle of the paintbrush about 2” from the bristles against your straight edge. BAM! Blood splatter.

The abrupt strike causes the paint to fly off the brush tip and impact the surface of your prop. Shape will vary depending on the viscosity of your mixture and the amount of paint on your brush. More paint will give streaks while less paint results in a series of dots. Thicker means heavier splats, thinner gives more pattern spread.

80 | WEATHERING TECHNIQUES

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

AIRBRUSH AND COMPRESSOR PEARL GOLD ENAMEL

METALLIC SILVER ACRYLIC MAGENTA ACRYLIC

BLUE ACRYLIC

DISPOSABLE PIPETTE FOR MIXING

METAL DISCOLORATION

Some metals, particularly stainless steel, will discolor when exposed to heat. Mild heat will tint the finish of the surface gold, and further exposure to high temperatures will shift this from gold to violet and eventually a bright blue. This technique is a nice accent to use on gun barrels and heat exchangers to simulate a lot of repeated intense use. You will absolutely need an airbrush for this to work; spray cans aren’t capable of the fine detail needed to make this really work.

To begin, your part should be painted in some metallic shade to really sell the metal look.

The first pass of paint should be done with pearl gold. You want a pretty narrow gradient from the edge of the gold to the rest of the metal color to simulate the heated portion of the metal.

81 | WEATHERING TECHNIQUES

After allowing the gold enamel to cure for 20-30 minutes, you’ll apply the purple layer. The paint used here is a flat purple, which was mixed with a metallic silver containing some large flakes. This mix gives the purple a more metallic property. Thinning the paint with reducer will aid in dry time and also make the paint slightly more translucent. This is helpful when spraying multiple coats over the gold to produce an even gradient.

Large metallic flakes in paint will sink quickly to the bottom of your airbrush paint cup, so be sure to continually mix the paint with a small plastic pipette to keep it properly integrated when spraying.

The purple acrylic doesn’t need to cure for much more than 5 minutes before moving on to the blue layer. While the gold to purple gradient is pretty abrupt, the purple to blue should be more gradual. Once heat transforms the color of stainless steel, the overall color transition isn’t fully blue or purple in any one place. A longer softer gradient will really sell this effect.

82 | WEATHERING TECHNIQUES

As a final accent, a thinned light coat of metallic silver and reducer will give the overall gradient an even metallic sheen. This should only be a light dusting added as an accent - try not to bury all your bright colors under a coat of silver! Lastly, clearcoat to seal the weathering and protect the fragile acrylic paint is necessary. A matte or satin finish will work best with this effect.

83 | CLEARCOAT AND SEALING