Painting Lego - How Do?

[Kommander Ken]

Never thought there'd be a day where I would actually be doing this, but here goes:










WHAT.










IS THAT?









Okay so if you couldn't tell, this was my first time ever executing such a heinous act and I'm not very pleased with the results. Luckily I still have one more to experiment with, as you can see by the comparison shot above.









This is literally the first thing I saw in my cabinet downstairs and I figured "oh hey it adheres to plastic, LETS DO THIS SHIT." There's probably better things out there, but I assumed a nice even coat would look better than the brushstrokes of a paintbrush or one of those cheap sponge-y brushes.










So I guess the question I have for you guys is: Does anyone know of a better product/way to go about painting this? Probably another important thing to note here is that this particular helm isn't solid plastic, but the rubbery and silicone-y type stuff.

[DJ Squidley]

Well, all I can say is, since it's white primer, just dust it with light layers while waiting about 10-20 minutes in between layers.  But come on dude:
This ain't no heinous act.

[Zupponn]

Vinyl Dye works best from what Mike keeps saying.

[stubby]

Rustoleum is designed for coverage, so it's going to build up thick. If you want to paint instead of dye, the best way to get a smooth coat is to paint on a whole lot of very thin layers rather than one thick one. If the paint is thin enough then it doesn't matter how crap your brushes are, because it'll dry too thin for the brush marks of any individual coat to matter.

You might be done already though, depending what effect you're going for. The rough bubbly texture on that helmet would work fine for a skeleton theme.

[dilanski]

Why spray with something so small and intricate? Especially with just doing one. Break out the fine paintbrushes, and get painting. And remember:


THIN YOUR PAINT

Milky consistency at minimum.

Oh, and even then, Gloss is never the way to go. Lego might not come in matte, but your are never going to get a good look with gloss.

[DJ Squidley]

EMPEROR, I'M MELTING

[Kommander Ken]

Thanks everyone. I took the collective advice from here and applied it to the painted Loki helm mk. II.



Using Testor's model paint and lots of mostly-thin coats, I think this looks much better.












This isn't even the last coat, I just got too excited and wanted to post an update here. As of this post, everything's finalized. Just wanted to wait closer to Halloween to post what I'm doing with it.