Painting platinum silicone with naptha slurry and metallic powders

Henry Creations

Hi family!

I have been working on a pair of Thor Sleeves made in platinum silicone (I will post when I have finished them) and after watching both of Jamie's courses on platinum silicone painting, I have a question:

I was wondering if once you clean the surface with alcohol and prep it with naptha, make the platinum silicone + naptha mix for airbrush and you apply it, after it cures it should stay stuck as if it was part of the cast or not.

What I mean by this, is that if I scratch the surface with my nail, I can peel that thin layer off. Maybe I'm not prepping the surface correctly, maybe it should stick better.

What I'm trying to do is paint the sleeves with the silicone naptha mix, then once it's almost cured, rub the metallic powder on and then apply a second coat of the silicone naptha mix to seal it.

Thanks as always brothers and sisters

Henry

Chris Ellerby

Hi Henry,

If you are rubbing the powder onto the surface that powder may act as a release agent, preventing any silicone you add later from adhering to the silicone below the powder.

You may want to do a small test where you mix the powder in with your silicone and spray it on so the powder is encapsulated and can bond.

/Chris

Chris Ellerby

Jamie Grove also provided some feedback:

Go ahead and add the metallic powder to your silicone mixture. Don’t worry about over or under pigmenting as the powder will not inhibit the silicone curing. That said, when I painted the Thor sleeves for the Avengers: Infinity War movies they were foam latex and painted with a different system. Good luck and hope that helps....peace

Hope that helps!

/Chris

Henry Creations

Hi Chris! Thank you so much for the answer and the feedback from Jamie.

I'm not gonna lie, I've been obsessed with the Thor scale armor since I saw Thor 1. For 10 years I've been thinking of an easy and accurate way to make them.

I think it was going bad because the test piece was old, even though I cleaned it (another point for the myth). I did it on the actual sleeves and it bonded perfectly well. Instead of silpoxy, I used the same silicone with naptha as glue, before and after the powder.

I got rid of the excess of powder with the heat gun, and then after applying the next layer of glue, it cured and it will stay there forever

Then I did another quick test just like Jamie said, mixing the powder into the silicone and it definitely saves time and makes sense. It was my first thought but I wanted to save on powder.

Thanks again to both for the feedback! Here are a few pictures of how it's going  


So the idea for this I had one day last year at 2 am. I couldn't sleep for the next days. It's a positive arm with inverted scales. A brush on mold separated in muscle groups. I thought I had to cast one muscle at a time and then join them, but because of the nature of the shape, I can just brush on the whole thing and then turn it right side out. Here are a few renders of all the versions I have 3D modeled so far and what they would look like.
The smartest way for me to do this was to take a 3D scan of my arm, but I haven't done that yet. Based on Chris Hemsworth's anatomy on top of mine, I sculpted 3 arms in ZBrush and then drew the grid as accurately as I could before splitting into muscle groups and placing simmetrical (below is the same shape as above) scales of different sizes and shapes. Then substract. Boom!

And voila, after casting them and placing them on the opposite mold (yeah they are mannequins too haha). I think for one person, this method is way easier and faster than a conventional one, I would need a team for that.

No muscle suit yet! I will make the muscle suit a similar way. But the sleeves behave and bend just right. No more falling apart scales or tearing foam baby!

The powder gives a metallic look, not as reflective as Alumaluster, but for these sleeves I think I don't need that look. My buddy Loïc is making a urethane scales with Alumaluster version which looks badass and resembles the first Thor scales.

I am currently painting them with black oil paint, naptha and the silicone, with both airbrush and brush. I am in love so far hehe.

Thanks a lot guys!

Henry

Henry Creations

What I'm trying to figure out now is how to invert the shines. I want the black areas to be matte, and the silver areas to be shinier. Maybe instead of airbrushing or brushing on the naptha with black oil pait and the silicone, I can airbrush a layer of glue all over the surface, getting in all the cracks, and then dust some carbon or something matte that can grip to the silicone in a similar way to the pearl ex powder. Then with naptha I can rub the carbon off the scales in a way that I want.

As if I was cleaning the sleeves. I think it could look more realistic.

What do you think?

Chris Ellerby

Looking awesome so far, great work!

When it comes to controlling how matte or glossy a silicone is you can use a dulling agent/matting powder or use silicone formulas designed to have a matte/gloss finish.

Smooth-On's "NOVOCS" line is an alternative to naptha, and they have versions designed to produce matte/gloss surfaces.

Matte:
https://www.smooth-on.com/products/novocs/

Gloss:
https://www.smooth-on.com/products/novocs-gloss/

/Chris

Henry Creations

Hi again! I'm going to leave a few pictures here of the finished sleeves. I sewed the straps so it would be easy to put them on / off.

I entered for the Halloween contest this year! What an amazing year for creations!
 

Chris Ellerby

Congrats on getting them finished and entered into the contest!

/Chris