Vim Fuego

Hi all! It's been a while...

My latest mod-job is actually the first blaster I ever painted. It was looking pretty sad with paint missing from various parts, due to either being overlooked or from wear'n'tear, and a grindy/sticky opening mechanism, so I decided to  do a redux version.

The Deploy CS6 Relic.

I love the engineering of this blaster - it's a torch!..



...It's a blaster! The secret to friction-free movement is furniture polish, in case you haven't seen my instagram lately...



Many, many details... There's a few small modifications that change the blaster subtly - the catch and release buttons had surface details removed, the pump-grip was de-detailed and reshaped slightly, the jam door was de-detailed, and the magazine also. The corrosion and paint-chipping is my usual technique, but skipping the rust step and combining the salt and latex directly on the metal layer. A second effect employing a water droplet mask was used to obtain the reticulated effect in the colours.



Two grime washes with slightly different tones were used to show the 'open' and 'closed' form in the dirt and grease. The scratched metal plate was a mis-step where I forgot to remove a latex mask from the panel before the colour step. It was difficult to remove with 2 layers of paint and latex masks, so I had to grind on it a bit - I decided afterward that I liked the effect and kept it as is... I mean, look at the job that black primer is doing there! Magnificent!



The switches and buttons got extra layers of the metal coat to increase their resilience. As a bonus, you can really see the reticulation effect coming through in these pics too. The trigger was tricky. The plastic they use - a soft, flexible substance commonly used in hi-impact areas such as pull-rings, muzzles and lanyard attachment loops - is extremely resistant to paint. Even sanded to a furry surface, the merest scrape will strip the paint off. Luckily there's little-to-no friction in the assembly. The contrast between the yellow and orange worked - I over-estimated the difference between bright red and colonial red unfortunately... oh well. The matt/gloss black on the grips came up sweet - the same water-droplet mask effect as the colours, but resulting in a perished rubber look that I'm more than happy with. And it moves sweeter than it has for a long time thanks to the aforementioned furniture polish applied while reassembling. The silicon wax is a great zero-residue painted-surface lubricant.

Thanks for looking!

I didn't think I'd ever get this one finished, but I managed to scrape together enough pennies to buy some flat black acrylic for the grime wash. Huzzah! Anyway...

May I introduce Anti-intestinal Fortitude!



A Nerf Mega Doublebreach painted in my usual style of dilapidated hot-rod-esqueness.



Aftermarket graphics, of course...



...and for something different, a water droplet mask for that odd-looking polkadot effect. It seemed to work okay, so I might end up using it again on something else.

Nothing internal to speak of, no-one in here except us chickens.

2019 is the year that one of my all-time favourite movies, Bladerunner, is set, so what better time to do a nerf tribute to Bladerunner?

So here it is, the Hammershot Bladerunner 2019 Edition.



The only Hammershot I've done with different detailing both sides



There's a bunch of stuff missing due to practical considerations, but I've added things too, so it balances out... kinda.



Whereas I enhanced the look of the strap/buckle decoration on one side, on the other I removed it entirely and replaced it with an adjustment knob and a wiring loom. I removed the tank from under the cylinder and used styrene sheet backed with epoxy glue to fill the support-arm holes. I also removed the bandages on the grip as usual, but also infilled the notch.



After all the fun with the epoxy putty, I had a little left over, so i worked away on some extra bits, the hammer got a lengthening, the bolt-lever was enhanced to give it a similar curve to the screen-prop, and some extra lines were cut into the shell with files.



While I had the rotary tool fired up, I decided to do an ejection slot. Note that it's not big enough for Megas (something I hope to address in V.2). I found a bunch of greeblies in my parts box and bunged those on as well; no LEDs or switches though (see note re. V.2). The fake screws were all replaced with rubber grommets left over from my Zoids era.

I could regail you with the trials and tribulations of epoxy putty, paint and masking tape, but there's another thread around here somewhere for that. Suffice to say, It came out okay after a somewhat shakey showing in the mid-stages.

Hope you like it and thanks for looking

Triple post! I just know I'm gonna get in trouble for this soon...

My February project ran a little over thanks to my exhibition taking up a bit of time, but better late than never.

Introducing The Thumper, a custom-painted Nerf Switch Shot EX-3. No internal mods, but its simplicity means that upgrades could easily be implemented at a moment's notice.



Or another barrel could be acquired to allow different strength shots dependent on the situation. Several could be modified to fire different darts, multiples, etc. and carried like magazines, but this is another project for another time...

A fun wee blaster to paint, it's barrel-separation mechanism makes it easy to work a multitude of colours into it.



I had a bit of trouble trying to get paint to stick to the priming handle, so there's a spot or two to cover up later. I sanded, washed and primed it, but the primer stripped off entirely, so I went back and started on it again, but then primed it with an etching automotive primer. This seemed to work, so I continued over the top of it. It wasn't until I was removing the liquid mask that a hole began to appear. I pulled the edges away until it stopped peeling, so it seems that it's just the one spot where the etching didn't take. I might just put a wrap of some sort over it to hide it... I've test fired it a number of times, and the priming handle's bar hasn't shown any wear at all so far, which is odd, but hey - way to go etch primer!

Hope you like it - thanks for looking

Sorry about the double-post, but it can't really be helped...

May I introduce my latest relic, a scavenged ex-service blaster I have dubbed "The Rearranginator".



Same ol' rust technique I've done dozens of times but with an extra wash on the bare metal parts just to see what would happen; a new antique leather technique I've been playing around with; and just for fun, some hand-painted graffiti, because when you find a blaster in the post-apoc wasteland, the first thing you do is personalize it



...and some cool news - I have an exhibition of my customized Nerf collection opening next week at a little gallery called PhotonFlux here in Wellington, NZ. It'll open on the 29th of this month and run for 2 weeks. If you're down in this neck of the woods, drop on in and have a look.

Chur!