Grenadier Spartan III

[tahu505]

This past month has been a really rough one with a lot happening at once. The consistent rain and humidity didn't mentally help or let me get much armor done. Luckily it was hot and dry today so I could get back to where I left off painting my armor before Denver!

I noticed that even though the behr paint has primer in it, it did not go on nearly as well as the parts without white primer already on them for stripes. The shins could have come out better but they're going to be weathered a ton anyway.

 

[tahu505]

Been getting some more painting done lately. Forecast shows hot and dry until Thursday so I'm trying to take advantage of that

I slipped up again and left the white primer I've been using outside the past couple days while it's been 100-110+°F outside. Got enough out of it to prime the parts I wanted on the cod, butt, and spine but after that the rest was dry. The can even got warped on the bottom, at least it did not explode lol. It feels like I've had a decent amount of mess ups on this project but again I want to post all of it so others can learn from my mistakes and show not everything goes perfect all the time. Even have to remind myself of that sometimes

 

[Rock Lobbster]

oraaaange team!

 

[tahu505]

oraaaange team!

RED TEAM! (with that Reach gold secondary)

 

[Rock Lobbster]

RED TEAM! (with that Reach gold secondary)

I knew it was the Reach gold but I saw orange paint and was hoping you were converted

 

[tahu505]

I knew it was the Reach gold but I saw orange paint and was hoping you were converted
View attachment 322939

Yeah Reach's "gold" is really a yellow/orange kinda color. I found this paint after weathering matches it nearly spot on. Also don't worry, orange team still gets to be a part of red team, Grif is chill like that

 

[tahu505]

Painting conditions have not been great the past week but I wanted to work on something so I revisited the visor today. The first visor was cut out with regular scissors and a box cutter in a garage at night. This time I decided to test out using the vacuum buck as a guide for an xacto knife and using left handed scissors to trim it up. I didn't take any pictures or videos while cutting it out so here's a dramatic reenactment.

This technique for cutting out the visor worked out pretty well. It might be hard to see but this is my spare test visor that has a concave dent in the front. When I do this for my actual visor I'm going to swap out my xacto blade for an actually sharp one (I felt lazy today). I also think the edges of this test visor fit in better than the con crunch one.

Now to watch videos on dying visors until I feel ready to give that a shot

 

[tahu505]

Weather was good to go for painting this morning! Finished up the gold secondary paint on the rest of the parts needed it just in time before the wind picked up.

Since the mornings tend to be less windy I taped up some parts ahead of time tonight so they'll be ready to go for red tomorrow morning (assuming weather is good again).

 

[Dire]

How well is the 3d pen thingy holding the psrts together?

 

[tahu505]

How well is the 3d pen thingy holding the psrts together?

It's been working really well! Don't just lay the filament from the pen on top though, make sure to push in to help melt the pieces together and weld them.

 

[tahu505]

Did a lot more taping over the past couple days while it was super windy outside. The wind this morning was calm so I got some painting in before it picked up again. I forgot to do anything to this stomach piece so I got white primer on it then yellow.

Turns out I forgot to take pics of that stomach piece but you'll see it later. I went on to paint the butt plate red. The paint I used for the gold is also a primer so I assumed the red would go on that easier than the other way around. This was just a guess so that's why I chose the butt first since it would be in the back.

That actually went on really well so I immediately started painting what I could while the wind was down.

I'll peal the tape off of these parts tomorrow after I give it time to dry. If wind conditions are good again I'll keep going

 

[tahu505]

Ok so the paint was dry enough to touch and I was very excited so I took the tape off the butt and forearms. I want to do another coat of red on the biceps so I'm leaving them taped up.

 

[tahu505]

More painting photo dump. Got the 2nd coat on the biceps, 2 coats on chest/back, 1 coat done on shoulders with a 2nd needed.

 

[tahu505]

PAINT

 

[tahu505]

Did some more untaping

And more taping and prepping for more paint

 

[tahu505]

Was very excited to find grey paint last night cause that meant I didn't need to buy more. Then this morning I dropped the can and the nozzle snapped...

Went on to touch up on this gold spine piece and ran out of red as I was finishing the thighs, so that worked out at least.

 

[S229]

Was very excited to find grey paint last night cause that meant I didn't need to buy more. Then this morning I dropped the can and the nozzle snapped...

ooooooof I know your pain, that really sucks, especially if its a full-ish can. My condolences.
Everything else looks great though!

 

[tahu505]

ooooooof I know your pain, that really sucks, especially if its a full-ish can. My condolences.
Everything else looks great though!

Thx! And it was a fullish can. It must have been old though cause I can't even remember why I had it.

 

[tahu505]

Got black and grey paint today and got to work with those. I forgot enamel paint takes longer to dry and was just thinking "ooh shiny, that would look nicer" but it's probably going to rain tomorrow so no rush.

 

[tahu505]

Started today off with a tape peal. This was probably the most satisfying one I've done, right their with my Stryker's.

Was trying to remember what I needed to work on next so I laid most of my parts out to see my progress. I haven't looked at the big picture in a while, I've mainly been focusing on one part at a time. I have all the red and gold done (except for when I make my boots and eventually work on the tacpad again)

Need to do some more details with the black and grey so I started taping some more stuff up.

I also hand painted some details with acrylic paint. I'll need to grab more tape soon so will probably get that tomorrow along with other things I need.