Nerf Modding Basics Pt 2: Base Paint & Reassembly

Greetings again all!

So... you've powered through the sanding and you're ready to paint up your gun. Whoa, whoa, slow down! There are a few things you need to know before you start laying down paint.

Once again, safety first. If you're going to be using spray paint, it's a good idea to have a respirator. Paint fumes are not something you want to be breathing in. So when painting please be outside and wear proper breathing protection.

Secondly, do research on your paint. If you're using spray paint, read the labels and find out which paints go well together. The main reason I'm telling you this is because I didn't.

Here's a little story: Like I've mentioned before, I am very impatient, especially when it comes to paint. I had this great idea to try out a new weathering technique for this gun. (another thing to never do, don't try new stuff when you're in a hurry) I was rushing to get this post out and wasn't paying any attention to my paints. I base coated the parts with a chrome paint and was planning on painting the main base colors on top.... which didn't turn out so good. This is what I ended up with:

If this is the look you're going for, cool. But 9 out of 10 of you, I'm guessing, don't want this on their gun. So, read the labels, find out the dry times of your paint. And most importantly test paint combos first, before you put them on your gun shell.

Now you know the reason why this part of the series was delayed. After the white paint did... whatever it did, I didn't want to redo it. My motivation was completely drained, and all I felt like doing was stare at the paint, wishing prop-making had *Ctrl+Z*.

But after seeing my site got a little more traffic, I had to push through my motivation block and get this posted.

If you had a similar problem with spray paint and were wanting to start over, here's how I redid mine.

To fix the issue with the paint, I used Testors enamel paint thinner. Since spray paints are enamel, the thinner eats right through it. I think you could also use mineral spirits, or other chemicals of that nature. But be careful, the more potent the chemical, the higher the chance of it damaging the ABS plastic of the shell.

With some paper towels dampened with the paint thinner, I rubbed off as much paint as I could get. After that, I went over the whole shell again with my sanding sponge to make sure there were no bumps in what remained of the paint.

If you're doing this please wear your respirator and work in a well ventilated area. Paint thinner fumes tend to linger, so do this outside, or if you're inside make sure you have a window open and have a fan circulating the air.

Gloves would also be a good choice, and if you don't have gloves, make sure you don't expose your skin to the paint thinner for extended periods of time and wash your hands immediately after doing this.

This picture was taken after the first pass with the paint thinner. I went over the pieces 2 more times to get as much of the paint off as I could.

Enough about mistakes and redoing stuff, let's get the fun part!

If you haven't already, you are going to need to pick out a color scheme. Don't feel limited here, you can do literally anything! You could base it on a weapon from your favorite move/video game or just have fun and come up with your own design.

Since this gun is going to be for my Destiny cosplay, I'm going to theme it like the Dead Orbit faction guns.

I found several pictures of a few different guns:

The common theme with these guns is the white and black base colors, as well as the Dead Orbit logo. I will be incorporating those three things into my Nerf gun.

The Crossbolt doesn't resemble any of these guns, and I don't really mind. I'm not going for an exact replica, I just want a prop that looks like it belongs in the faction. Since I like the look of all of these guns I'll be combining details from them all.

Don't worry if your Nerf gun doesn't look like the reference.

The last Nerf repaint I did was inspired by the Destiny 1 hand cannon called the 'Palindrome'.

As you can clearly see, it's not a perfect replica.

I wasn't deterred by the shape of the gun, all I wanted was a quick prop that would be recognizable. And with Nerf repaints, it's more about having fun then being accurate. Though later down the road, I will be doing a more advanced Nerf modding guide, covering how to modify the shell of a gun to make it more accurate to your reference.

But for this series, I will only be covering basic painting.

Up above I mostly talked about spray paints. But you could just as easily paint a blaster with model paints, whether those be acrylics or enamels. I prefer spray paints because of how effortlessly they cover large areas. The Palindrome (^shown above^) was based coated with black spray paint, but all of the other colors were painted by hand with acrylics. Depending on the gun you're trying to replicate, going with acrylics may be in your best interest. They're super cheap and easy to use and clean up.

Alright, alright. Enough reading about paint, it's time to start painting!

Put the shell on a piece of cardboard and start spraying. Though be wary, don't spray the paint over one area for an extended period of time. If you do that, the paint will most likely form drips, or even start pooling around details. And we don't want that. Keep the can about 10-15 inches away from the piece and use short spritzes while keeping the can moving.

Unfortunately I didn't get any progress pictures of the gun while painting it. But here's what it came out like after I had all my base coats down.

And if your gun has a magazine, don't forget to sand and paint that as well.

Like I mentioned in the first part of the series, this gun was so easy to paint because the shell breaks down into three different pieces. Depending on the blaster you're painting, you might not have this luxury. You may have to mask section off, or just paint it by hand.

The black and white looks great, but I need more color. So for other minor details, I'll be using acrylics to add the silver parts and to clean up some of the black paint, I'll be using this black oil based paint.

And for the internals, I removed the trigger and made sure that was painted. I also painted the magazine release button as well as other small pieces.

Like the sanding part of the walk-through, I felt like the base coating steps were pretty straightforward and didn't require me to go into extreme detail. If you have any questions, or if I missed something, please let me know in a comment.

Since you've got your base colors down, it's time to put the gun back together.

Now would be a great time to look at those pictures you took at the beginning of this process so you know how everything goes back. Though most internals will just slot into place without too much fuss.

The only internal part for the Crossbolt was the trigger mechanism

After you fitted the internals back into the blaster, carefully put the other piece of the shell on top, followed by all the screws. If you were wanting to fill in the screw holes, now would be a perfect time to do it. You could use Bondo body filler, or any air drying clay. I've never filled in screw holes in any blaster I've painted, that's just my personal preference.

Now that the gun is all painted and put back together, spray it with a clear coat. The next step is weathering and we wouldn't want to damage our base colors.

Alright, I think that's it for this one. There really isn't a right or wrong way to paint, every project is different. I can't walk you through every step, but I trust that you all can lay down some base colors on your guns.

In the third and final part of this series, I will be going over stencils, masking, weathering and other small detailing tips.

Thanks for stopping by!

*Spartan Out*