Hello,

Noob painter here. I need to paint the black stripes on the claws of my Blackarachnia custom. What's the best way to do that and make sure they are straight and uniform?

My first thought was using blue scotch tape and tape off the parts I don't want to paint. My concern is that when I pull the tape the edges will not look straight due to bleed over etc.

Do you have a method you would like to share with me? Keep in mind my skill level is not super high.

Thanks  

 

I have been using tape too and i do admit that the first times i did a mess. XD But when i press them really hard on the plastic and pulling them off carefully and slowly, the stripes were straight and clean.
Just one question: the colors you are using the tape on: did you apply it too?

 

I have the claw all in gold and I will be applying black to the gold. I guess I will try and make sure the tape is super tightly applied and see what happens. Should I pull the tape before or after it drys I wonder?

 

You can use a liquid masking as well. No bleed over scares. If you use tape I would suggest letting te paint set up for like 15 minutes then pull it.

 

Didn't do the stripes last night but practiced making a straight line on the arms. One arm was more or less perfect the other had some bleed over (which was easy to touch up and fix). I think with practice this is the way to go, with the masking tape. The arms were irregularly shaped too which I think led to bleed over problem. The claws are more uniform so I expect less problems with them  

 

You've already painted the claws gold, but in the future, I'd suggest "reverse" masking. As in:

Paint the whole claw black. Then apply thin strips of masking tape where you want the stripes to be. Then paint everything gold. Remove tape---voila, nice even black stripes.

You can get pre-cut masking tape in many small widths pretty easily--much easier than trying to individually mask off each side of a stripe and make it even. (unless you're going for a perfect 50/50 split in how much is gold vs how much is black---then it doesn't really matter)

 

To revive an old thread, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on getting more than one stripe.

For example, I'm trying to make a custom Sunstorm. The wings have an orange base, one white stripe and one red stripe. As my first move after sanding everything, I masked everything and did a spray can to put a red stripe on each side. Came out beautifully.

I then changed my masking to make room for a white stripe next to the red one. This time I used a brush, and when I removed everything (mind you, I let each color sit in its mask for an hour) there was white bleed onto the red, and into some of the sculpted details.

My white too thin? My tape not on hard enough? I was using regular masking tape and pressed it into the borders with the edge of a screwdriver. I have to sand it all off and start again, but before I did so I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has any advice from doing any kind of close-proximity detailing like that.

Thanks!

 

I'm not expert, but just an anecdote, I was painting a face w/ acrylics (G2 Megatron) and taped off the areas around the eye. And because of that I went willy nilly with the paint not really minding the edges. I'm assuming this is b/c I used acrylic paint, but after letting it dry a day, I pulled the tape off and the eye paint came off with it too.

 

In cases like that, I mask the whole area and make the first color the width of both stripes, then mask off the part I want to stay that color and paint the second color over the first - paint the whole area white, mask off what will end up as the white stripe, then paint the red stripe. That way I only have to add one piece of tape to what I've already done.

Not all masking tape is created equal either. I love the 3M blue tape for most stuff, but for clean lines I rely on Tamiya masking tape. I've had much better luck with it. The 3M stuff is good for a lot of different uses, but I've had trouble keeping clean lines with it compared to the Tamiya tape.

 

Helpful stuff. Thanks!

 

use tamiya brand masking tape. ive used the horrible blue painters tape and it sucks and lifts paint. tamiya is nice and doesnt lift paint. use a qtip and rub it all over [thats what she said] to make sure you have no air bubbles

 

Yeah, I was working with garden variety 3M masking tape. Worked fine for the spray, but had no luck against the brush.

 

trust me, try tamiya. i was really sad every time i used the 3m, but tamiya is great. I did the lines on my aoe crosshair's head with them, and those things are barely 1mm wide

 

My approach to avoid bleeding is to mask it with tape, then paint it lightly with the base color. If you are painting black stripes on a gold claw, for example, mask the stripes with tape, then paint gold before you paint black. This should make the gold base color fill in the gaps and bleed in, then the black paint will not bleed.


There is also thin "art tape" that may help. This isn't the brand I use, but you can get it very thin, I've see 1/16th of an inch. I think pinstripers and sign painters use it.

Amazon.com - 3M Scotch 1/8-Inch Artist Curves Tape - Arts And Crafts Tapes