How to fake a prop from toys (Patreon)

Hi guys! This is just a quick tutorial about turning brightly colored plastic toys into more realistic looking props!!

What you need

-paint brushes

-black, white, brown paint

-your choice spray paint color for the base colors

-painters/masking/blue tape

-exacto knife

-Patience

-oh and of course your toy of choosing

So step 1:

Aquire your transformable prop. I need a star lord gun so this was a cheap base that I could paint on.

Step 2: with photo reference in mind start taping off sections of the gun for first coat spray paint. So in this case I wanted to repaint the black section so I tapped the rest! I used my exacto knife to get clean edges!

Step 3: spray paint!

I wanted the black part to now be sliver! So I sprayed one side, making sure to angle the spray paint to get in all the cracks and crevices. Waited for it to dry and then do the same with the other side.

Step 4:

Add or remove tape for next spray paint round.

In which my case I just added more paint after the sliver was dry and removed the tap on the grip handle And then sprayed it black

You can see the difference here between taped side and peeled away side!

Step 5:

Peel off all tape and get ready to dry brush detailing

Don’t worry about odd spots where the paint didn’t fully get in! Well fix that!

Best brushes to use are flat square one like this!

Make sure they are super dry!

And squirt out little bits of the brown, white and black on a piece of paper or surface of your choosing.

I painted with white first using the bigger brush to gently coat the tips of the brush bristles and kind of brush off a little excess paint on to the paper to really get minimal paint hence the dry brushing name.

Follow edges to stroke outward from edge

(I totally forgot to take pics of this step opps)

The main idea is make the edges pop to give it dimension Almost taking it from 2d to 3D in a sense. Giving props and armor dimension using highlighting and lowlight and dry brushing is what really elevates a costume. Taking it from flat and cartoony to more realistic and eye catching.

After edges give the prop more random strokes to give it wear and tear

After white use black and then end with brown

Just let the paint on your brush capture the natural curves and edges.

And boom we take it from toy to legit prop

Also I don’t always do this but best to probably do is to seal everything with clear sealant spray

So yah! There you have it! The best step up from this is building our own unique props by gluing together random toys and thing a ma bobs!

I hope this was helpful!