Metalic Paint Ideas

Thank you, that was the term I was looking for. I guess I'll just have to give it a lot of practice.

It's actually fairly easy to pick up, the best tip I can give you is to make sure there's barely any paint on the brush at all, almost none infact...

With drybrushing, you can always do another drybrush coat over the top of previous coats, but if you put too much on in one go it just looks like you've smeared silver paint on it!

Would you suggest acrylic or oil based paint?

I've only ever used acrylics, so can't comment on oils. Can't imagine they'd be much use because of their long drying time though.

also another route is remove old finish , I get mine sandblasted then use gun blue .and wire wool wear areas.

also another route is remove old finish , I get mine sandblasted then use gun blue .and wire wool wear areas.

I've never had much success with gun blue on the shitty metal that most guns are made of, and no luck at all using it on plastic

must admit plastic and gun blue is a no no ,as for metal if its well prepared gun blue works fine. any grease from fingers will stop it working best to use cotton gloves ,

In the past I have sprayed them silver, then black, then used a cutting polish on the raised edges until the silver shows. Then sealed the whole thing with a matt varnish spray. It's a bit more bother than drybrushing but it looked good on my garand until it got scratched to hell in games, which is one reason why now I would just paint guns with matt black plastikote, it is easier to renovate when they start looking tatty.

An alternative is to use fire place blacking - its basically a graphite based paste that you smear on fireplaces. You can polish it up to a bit of a sheen, but it stays nice and black. It works wonders on plastic. I've posted a couple of threads here on tarting up both my Thompson and my MP40. They explain what I'm talking about in more detail.

For drybrushing - Acrylic only.

aluminium black can be verry efective but not on pot metal where it just leaves a sort of powdery black finish that just rubs off,on real ally its a real joy and you can even get a blueish finish whats more it doesent just come off.the greatest contrast i've seen is on mp 40's where the main lower frame and pistol grip part blacks beutifully and ages in a natural way but the arms on the stock are impossible to get a satisfying effect and it scrapes off leaving allmost shiny pot metal underneeth.i supose the best you can say is give it a try and if it goes crappy just paint instead,when it works its a verry desirable effect.