Painting the Armor

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Once you've finished all the EVA foam & fun foam construction,
it's time to start coating the foam. Inspect ALL your
seams/edges to make sure you've completely glued the edges
together. Also, you'll need to be sure that you've glued the
entire edge of all fun foam panels. If not, the PlastiDip will
cause the fun foam to pull away from the base layer.
We use the Foam Coat from Matt Silva at Black Tie FX. You
dab the foam coat onto the armor, don't brush it on. It will stay
somewhat sticky. The only way you'll know it's ready for
PlastiDip is that it gets slightly less shiny.
We usually do 3-4 coats of PlastiDip. Make sure you get an
even coat, especially checking the edges of the layers of foam.
You'll also want to give the inside of the armor a coat of
PlastiDip so that it's got a good consistent black coating where
the back might be seen in photos.

Sadly, I forgot to take photos of the boots with only the Plastidip
applied. Here are some pics of Garron Paduk's belt pouches and
pauldrons. This will at least show what the plastidipped pieces
look like.

Once your PlastiDip has dried, it's time to paint! Start with
about 2 coats of your base color. Depending on the quality of
the paint, you may need 3-4 coats, but usually 2 will do it.
Then, you can add any detail paint. (stitching, metal edges,
battle damage, etc) Let your base coat dry for at least a day or
so.
In this photo, I'm about 1/2 way thru painting the leather
backing to the kneepads. I like to paint from the top layers
down. So whatever is the top layer of fun foam gets painted
first. That way, as you paint the lower layers, you can clean up
any spots where you got the wrong color paint on the armor.
So, as I paintthe brown leather on the kneepad, I can clean up
any black paint from the edge of the kneepad. And as I paint
the top of the boot, I can clean up brown from the leather
straps & kneepad.

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Painting the Armor

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http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/costuming/eva-painting-armor.html

Yet more paint has been applied. You can see that the right boot
(the one in back) has only had one coat of the green applied to
the boot top.

Here's a close up of the kneepad. The yellow strips were applied

by masking off the lines using blue painters tape. Just make
sure the base coat of paint (in this case the green paint) is
GOOD and dry before you put the masking tape on it.
For more on applying stencils, check out my page on Painting
Stencils.

Harrison Krix at Volpin Props is a master of painting. Robin & I

watched this video of his MANY times before painting our first
piece of armor. This is a video of Harrison weathering his M8
Avenger from Mass Effect, but these techniques can be applied
to many other types of props.

You'll make up a slurry of paint...we mix reddish brown & black

to get a good rusty/oily black. You'll paint the ALL OVER your
armor. We usually do about 6"-8" square an area at a time.
Now you can wipe off most of the paint using a paper towel.
This will leave grunge in the battle damage, crack, crevices, and
in any texture you've added to your foam.
I've applied the grunge wash to the left boot & the right boot is
still just the base paint. You can see how it emphasizes texture
of the stitching, and gives the yellow toecap a nice patina. (the
boot on the left is shiny because the grunge wash is still
wet...it'll be less shiny once the paint dries)
NOTE: Make sure you've let the base coat dry properly, or you'll
end up wiping off the base paint as you wipe off the extra
grunge.

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Painting the Armor

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http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/costuming/eva-painting-armor.html

Next you'll dry brush to bring out the highlights. Just get a
LITTLE bit of paint on the end of a large soft brush. You'll lightly
dust this along the edges where you want to visually bring out
the edge. You can do this with a lighter version of the base coat
to emphasize the shape, or with chrome/aluminum to simulate
wear along the edge.
The boots are almost done! You can see that I've also added dirt
to the bottom 1/4 of the boots. This was applied by dabbing
brown paint onto boot by using a piece of sponge.

These are our Anya Stroud (on left) and Marcus Fenix (on right) chest
armors. Anya Stroud's armor only has the base coats of paint applied to it.
Marcus Fenix's armor has the base coats, stencils, washes, and
drybrushing.

Bernie Mataki's pauldron armor as it's being weathered. you can see the
grunge wash being applied in the upper left photo. A screencapture of the
Bernie Mataki in game model is at the upper right. The lower photo shows
the first layer of grunge applied & wiped from the pauldron.
Click HERE to see the templating process for Bernie's pauldron.

<-Back to Assembling the Armor

On to Simulated Leather Strapping->

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2003 Brian Mead / Hardscrabble Farm

If you'd like to use any of this content on your website, please notify me via email prior to posting the content. Also, please credit the source as Hardscrabble Farm and if an author or
contributor is noted, please credit them too. Basically, if you want to swipe my stuff, I know I can't stop you...or it would be costly, time consuming, and definitely NOT fun to try.

4/15/2016 3:02 AM