Painting PU resine without airbrusher

Geoffroy Pallardy

Hi everyone ! How are you doing ? I wanted to know if anyone knows about painting PU resine without using a airbrusher because I don't have one yet and it is for my mace sculpture which is 61cm tall.
Thanks, Geoffroy 

Chris Ellerby

That's a great candidate for acrylic washes.    An acrylic wash is just acrylic paint mixed with water.  It can be applied with a brush, sponge, or even sprayed in a squirt bottle.

Since your mace already appears to be white, you can use that as your base color, and start building up darker colors on top of that.

I would start with a fairly concentrated wash of a dark brown, and cover the entire mace with that.  Then I would use a rag or paper towel to wipe off the entire surface.  This will leave that dark pigment in the details, deep recesses, etc. and only lightly stain the rest of the mace.

Then, after letting that dry, I would use a more diluted wash of a medium brown over the entire surface and allow it to dry.

From there you can keep adding diluted washes one layer at a time, making sure the previous layers are fully dry so they are not disturbed by new washes.  They don't need to cover the entire surface, and can even be sponged on in small blotches to help break up the surface.

One thing that I've found that helps is to mix up many different colors, so the piece does not feel to monotone.  With washes I usually work from dark to light, but you can always go in with darker washes later to insure that the details still pop.  In the case of your example, your main palette is brown, but you can mix up warmer browns, cooler browns, etc.

Another great technique is to take an acrylic wash and using a trimmed down disposable paint brush (or old tooth brush) run your finger over the brush (towards yourself) to flick small speckles of paint on the surface.  You can then go in with a rag and dab and spread out those speckles so soften them up a bit.   Subtlety is key with this technique, as you don't want the finished piece to looks like it's covered in dots.  This gives you a slight breakup pattern on the surface so it does not feel like all one solid color.

You could also dry brush on some dirt/dust colored paint at the end if you want to have some of the raised details pop.

Once you are done, I suggest sealing the mace with a clear matte spray paint to protect your paint job.  I would also do a test with what ever clear matte spray paint you find on a scrap object painted with the same acrylic paints to make sure you don't have any unexpected reactions that might produce an undesired surface finish.

/Chris

Geoffroy Pallardy

Thank you very much Chris I have done that so far 

Chris Ellerby

That mainly depends on the final look you are going for.  You can always do acrylic washes and drybrushing to pop details, or use brushes/sponges for coverage.

What's the intended aesthetic for this piece?

/Chris

Geoffroy Pallardy

Thanks for the answer Chris, I would line something like that for the final look.

Chris Ellerby

Your painted mace looks great!

/Chris

Tribal

Super