100411 - The Props pt4 and Painting the Fox pt1

I recently got hold of a air brushing kit of a family friend, it needed some light work doing to it, to get it running again but with a few hours work, a new plug and fuse and it was running as sweet as a nut and ready to use again.

I will be using it to paint both the props and the also the fox puppet. This will allow me to get a thin layer on the fox and hopefully a nice finish, but also be a lot quicker than hand painting.

The paint I am using is just simple acrylic paint, thinned down with cheap nail polish that contains acetone.

I used nail polish as I couldn't get hold on any proper thinners cheaply, or in time and using water just split with the paint making it very lumpy, so after some trail and error I found a nail polish remover that worked.

I first started work on the props, here I'm giving the first batch of DVD boxes a base coat of white.

Once dry, they then got a final coat of black.

With the props done and my new found confidence with the airbrush I began mixing up paint and testing it out ready to start on the fox.

Here I was checking the final dried colour of the orange paint I mixed up and also getting the settings right on the gun as to get the best finish.

Once I was happy with the colour and the settings I grabbed a piece of left over foam latex (excess removed from the edges of the mould) and began spraying it. I did this so I could see if the foam latex reacted with the acetone I'd used in the paint.

Thankfully, once dry there was no adverse reactions and after a few more tests I was happy that I could start painting the puppet.

In total the fox was given around 5 light coats of the orange. This gave a nice solid colour and I was very pleased with the outcome.

The only downside is that with the fox being painted in acrylic, it will constantly need touching up and repairing during the filming process as it's cracks.

This however, is a lot better than having very thick noticeable creases at the joints that the latex mixed paint gave me and a compromise I was willing to make at this point in the process.