Now That’s Worryingly Addictive…

It seems I’m developing a habit for Krylon. Will I ever get clean again?

I say Krylon, what I mean is spraying my blaster with any brand of acrylic paint which feels right for the look I want. Or the look I think I want. I’ve started here with a base of Humbrol Dark Brown 29. This was recommended to me by Jim (Jimmypie) of Gray Fox and I’m largely following his technique in my own implementation of the Kryloned blaster look.

I can’t claim to have gone about this as authentically as Jim, nor any of the other guys whose blasters I’ve featured in the Kryloned Blasters series. But, I’ve not degreased anything.

I started off with a brand new VFC KAC front BUIS – Block II style. I couldn’t source a taupe one, so I decided to disassemble what I had and spray the base. I didn’t want to just dust it, because the sight should start out taupe – not black with a dusting of FDE.

This got me thinking. When I’m spraying the whole gun, I don’t want to be mucking about with small details. I want the gun to act as an expanse of canvas for broad brush strokes, if you’ll excuse the art metaphor.

So, this led to a light dusting of my MATECH rear BUIS. Notice the markings are still showing and I wanted to retain some light and shade.

I’ve only used the Humbrol paint so far, but what worked for me were short sharp bursts of paint – dusting the area, moving on, then re-dusting.

I’ve got to be honest, it felt really good spraying both sights. Aside from writing, I barely do anything creative, so I got quite a buzz from it.

So, I thought, why not do the upper as a separate unit? And that’s when I formulated the plan to do this in stages. Breaking the initial base coat applications into a number of sessions, based on components or sub-assemblies of the gun. After that was done, I’d put the gun back together and work on the pattern across the whole piece. This is intuitive to me and like I said, it’s not an authentic method – but it has helped me overcome any anxieties I had about painting a whole gun.