Hi everyone! I'm working on my Sideswipe costume and trying to make Cybertronian weathered metal texture for his blades. I use texture paste and drybrushing techique with two colors, but still not satisfied. I think the texture is more similar for wood than metal  Would be super-glad to get some advices!

 

Not sure if this will help but it's probably worth a shot. Around 10:12, this guy starts talking about the chrome/metal band on BB-8's head. He used aluminum tape that he took off the roll, put on wax paper, and scored with sand paper, then applied to the head. For what I think you're going for, a combination of scoring with sand paper, as well as probably rubbing a few spots with steel wool or something to give extra scratches to spots that would typically be scuffed up more than usual. You could probably put it directly onto the blades and use an X-Acto knife to cut out the Cybertronian text, then give it the scratches and scuffs. I think you can get aluminum tape for as low as $3 per roll, so if you need a lot, it wouldn't be too expensive to cover the entire blade.

I have no experience with cosplaying so this is just a shot in the dark but I think it could work out really well! I hope to see how these turn out! Good luck!

EDIT: Afterwards, a little bit of weathering and drybrushing would probably give it even more depth and personality! You could maybe even get away with using a watered down black to fill in the Cybertronian text and make it stand out a bit more if that's what you want (I know if I were doing this, I'd want to make them stand out)

 

I have some experience of working with aluminum foil and even have all the instruments. And the one, I have, is very capricious material It looks gorgeous, but it's incredibly difficult to cover big surfaces with it. I used it for the face parts because they are polished. I also think that I should use more contrast colors for background and foreground, if I'll use drybrushing. I used a mixture of black and silver for a background, but it would be better to use just black. I also did several scratches by knife and sand paper. I was planning to paint tiny scratches by liquid light silver and then to wipe out extra paint (to make fresh scratches), but I suddenly wiped out silver foreground color too!  I should use a clear sealant before it. I heard that some people use several primer colors, but I don't know, how they do it. Also, thanks for the interest! The main thread about the costume is here. It's a very long story  Actually I'm making a third iteration of this costume. It's likely, I may write many stuff about it on TFW!

 

You should try dry brushing it with 4 or 6 more colors. An orange, a dark grey, a brown, a black, a medium grey. I think you will be surprised how much difference it will make.

 

You mean rusty view? I don't think that it's needed. It would be interesting to use several hues for metal including green, violet and blue. But I'm afraid that I will not be able to hold such extremely realistic style for the entire costume!

 

I think its worth the extra effort. That's my opinion. could we see a wider shot of the weapon. You gotta remember most people will be 3 meters away or more from you at a convention. As cosplayers we tend to over analyze details in construction that most people will never see. Sometimes you gotta step back and look at it the way everyone else will.

< this is a smart idea!!

 

I carved hieroglyphs very deeply by razor knife, took more contrast colors and they definitely look better! The problem is that Sideswipe has two types of metal on his body: car parts, which are polished and glossy, and cybertronian metal, which has nonuniform weathered look. Car parts are done already, they have slightly scuffed look, but overall they haven't painted details. I worry that people would't understand why they're different