Jefferson Dutton

A friend gave me a whole bag o Nerf guns, so let’s paint em up!  The current series of guns (‘N-Strike’ for those of you not 12) are well suited for this– you can see that, besides the nerfy color scheme, these kinda look like real guns.  The exception being this one; the ‘Hornet.’  It’s a weird looking thing, there are a few sorta clashing ‘design themes’ at play, but it could make for a cool Halo-ish prop.  It took me a while to give this one a shot, but I thought I’d take pics throughout the process.

Step one– planning out the colors– is the hardest, requiring both imagination and logic!  You don’t need to know exactly what you want, but it will save you a ton of time if you do.  You can see in the above picture that I’ve started taping off the metal-colored belly part.  I knew I’d be doing my own ‘brushed metal’ look as well, but thought it’d be cool to keep the belly as-is, and maybe get a cool two-tone metal effect.  I use masking tape (and in some tight spots an x-acto knife and tweezers) to protect sections from the thorough dousing of spray paint headed its way.

I also wanted to keep the darkest green on the grip parts.  In the past I’ve pretty much stuck to different blacks and metallic tones, but keeping a bit of color can give the finished product a little character.  What will ultimately make it look awesome is a thoughtful balance of a few colors– or even better, textures, which sell the look of ‘different materials.’  Keeping some pre-existing colors on the gun will get you that added complexity without having to add steps of painting and prep.

I also wanted to preserve the grey (although not quite metallic) parts, like the front ‘shell’.  Taping is tedious, but take your time.  Sharp clean lines are the goal here.

I sanded off the Nerf logos with a little electric sander.  Since they’re raised a bit, the dry-brushed metal effect we’re gonna do would accentuate them.  Otherwise they might not bother you.

Here it is, hit with the first coat of black spray paint.  Its a primer, so it sticks really well to plastics and will have a dull finish (not glossy.)

Keep the coats pretty light.  You’re going to hit it a few times from different angles to get in all the nooks and crannies, waiting 20 mins between coats to let it dry.

Getting the insides of these barrels without having paint gather and bead up all over the place is a pain.  Again, many light coats from different angles will prevent this.  A brush could have worked well come to think of it.

See how much we missed with the first coat?  Spin that guy around and hit it again!

After painting the left side of the gun from the top, then bottom, and the right side from the top, then bottom, we’ve got ourselves a base coat.

Wait for the paint to dry before removing the tape, or you’ll leave fingerprints.  This paint dried relatively quickly (since its primer, I think.)

The blacks look good, but ugh.  Not liking that Nerfy grey.  Very plastic looking.  Too bad I took off all the tape.  Gonna have to re-tape the metal belly, the green, etc. and go back in…

There we go.  Re-taped.  See what I mean about planning out what you want? Doing this over sucked.

And here we are after another round of black primer.  The black serves two functions; not only is it your black, it’s the first step of the weathered metal look I love so damned much.

Now grab some metallic paint.  A little goes a long way.  I used this Krylon chrome. Wet a brush (this ones about 1.5″ wide) with the silver, and, get this– wipe the paint off of it.   On a scrap of whatever.  Now, with only the last residue on the brush, run it along the surfaces of the gun, in various directions, and it’ll start to hit the raised edges and contours with a scratchy texture.  This technique is called drybrushing.

Go easy at first, then you can start leaving more paint on the brush for more pronounced ‘wear and tear.’  Remember to keep nearby areas taped off cause it can fleck and spray when you go to town with that brush.

Looks like I could have sanded this logo down a little better.  Kinda cool though.  See how the places hit with paint are the slots and edges of the shell.  The under-layer of black is only noticeable in the flattest sections.  This guns been in the shit!

Same as with the spray paint, make sure your work is even, from all angles.  Use Del Monte canned corn to keep the gun upright so you can walk around and really scope the scene.

Bang.  There’s that outer shell.  This was the one part I knew I wanted metallic, but now I’ve got to figure out what other parts to hit.  The best candidates are parts of the gun that are similar in shape or texture.  Since there are some ‘plates’ toward the back that have similar curves and ‘rivets’, I’ll plan on weathering those too. (And hey check out that nerf silver in the belly!  Niiiice!)

Again, tape off those surrounding areas.  Keep it clean!  The black in-between the silvers won’t look as nice if it’s splattered, it ruins the contrast!

All taped off.  There’s a sort of cylindrical rod joining the handgrips that seems like it’d be metal so that’s in.

After drybrushing we’ve got our other metal bits.  It’s still looking a little clean for my tastes though, so I’m going to do a light round of drybrushing on the overall gun, including the dark greens.

Here she is, ‘finished.’  Looking back I wish I’d kept some of the flat black for contrast, but it looks about how I expected.  Here are some more details of the finished Hornet…

A six shooter (from the old west)

Ooh, various metals went into the construction of this strange weapon!

And is that a splash of color to liven up the place?

The business end of the thing.  Glad I kept the ‘Hornet’ model number on the shell there.

Finally, here’s the before and after:

There ya have it.  Now, WILL YOU ALL STOP ASKING ME to explain the re-painting process of the Nerf N-Strike series?  They’re toys for children!

48×24″ acrylic on canvas.  Click to enlarge.

60×30″ acrylic on utility table, resin coated.  Click to enlarge.

30×40″ acrylic on canvas.  Click to enlarge.

9×17″ mixed media on found metal.  Click to enlarge.

4-Colorway Print  34×19″ posters.  Click to enlarge.

This is the first picture I colored with Photoshop (though I had yet to learn that no amount of lens flare makes up for lack-of-driver.)  Click to embiggen!