Hi everyone, I will be ready to paint some custom Megatrons soon and that will be the first time I'll ever paint large surfaces with silver. I'm a little worried about it because I usually drybrush my silver parts when they're small details but this time, we're talking about large dull areas where I want the paint to be smooth and I'm not feeling confident about it, I'm fearing the fact they may look cheap or not realistic after painting. So, here's my question: how to achieve a smooth dark silver (something like Cybertron Galvatron or Buster Prime silver but a little darker) on large areas? I was thinking about priming the figure with flat back (Tamiya spray can (they don't sell Krylon in my country :/)) for paint adhesion, then base coating it using gloss black or semi gloss black (Testors MM) then painting it with a mix of regular silver and gun metal (Testors MM) and finishing the whole thing with a glossy or semi glossy clear coat (probably Testors). Does it sounds like a good way to go or am I wrong? Oh and by the way, I will be using an airbrush with acrylics and I did search through the board but I didn't find anything revelant to this, sorry if I missed it. Thanks in advance for any help
If you want silver, and not chrome I've used black primer called Armory Black Primer. It works really well as a base for silver paint. I've posted it somewhere on this forum when I painted my G1 Scorponok leg shields. At least that's how I do it.
Thank you but I don't want it to look like chrome, only smooth dark silver, something shiny but not really reflective. Thanks for the information, I'll look for information on that armory black primer. Unfortunately, I can't find picture of your G1 Scorponok leg shields, I would have liked to see the result.
Sorry, I thought I had some pictures of it. Was looking in my photobucket and the only pics I have are of the parts primed. But this is the primer I was talking about.
Thanks but it looks like something I won't find here easily... I just typed "light gun metal tamiya" into Google Images. This is EXACTLY the color I want, looks like I won't need to airbrush any silver part on this figure. Thanks a lot! Do you think I should base coat the figure with some gloss black before applying it?
I use testors gunmetal metalizer You have to seal it after applied with the testors metalizer sealer, all is found in their site: Testors » Paints » Metalizer Enamel Paint there are other colors as well.
It seems to look amazing too, too bad they don't sell Krylon here. The result looks great but maybe a little too dark for my taste, I'll definitely look into it by searching pictures of painted things with the other colors from the line, thanks.
I sprayed over silver and black plastic and it came out fine. If you're going over colored plastic, give it a coat of primer before going with the Light Gun Metal. I'm tempted to say a white or light grey primer, since you don't want the final result to look too dark- just darker than Silver. Maybe try each primer on some scrap parts to test? See which one comes out with the best result for you.
