Decorative Painting for…Nerf Guns?

It all started with the announcement that Club Kairos would be having a Wild West theme with a twist this year. What is Club Kairos? Well, several years ago, my church, Fellowship of Faith, started doing themed dinners for Valentine’s Day weekend. The first year I started going, it was a ’50′s diner theme. The year after that, it was a murder mystery theater. They were a fun way for families at the church to have a “date night” (even though kids were often involved). Eventually this morphed into Club Kairos (“kairos” being Greek for “the right moment”), with the idea that each year would have a different theme based on a period in history.

Like I said, this year’s Club Kairos was Wild West. Wait, what about “the twist” I mentioned earlier? Well, after the success of the movie “Cowboys & Aliens”, we decided that maybe we should have some extraterrestrials show up to “take back their time-travelling technology”. So guests were encouraged to dress up either as cowboys or as aliens. I thoroughly enjoy dressing up for Halloween and plays/films when I can, so I was excited about it. I took inspiration from actor Daniel Craig’s character in “Cowboys & Aliens”, who wakes up in the desert with a bizarre alien cuff on his wrist that turns out to be a weapon. I created the costume of an “alien bounty hunter”, a cowboy who ran afoul with the extraterrestrials and stole a futuristic weapon that he uses to track down the alien menace. Ok, ok, most people didn’t go this far with their costumes – most just showed up in a plaid shirt and a cowboy hat. But I tend to go over the top on these sorts of things. Ask Patty or Jess.

For Christmas, I actually asked for a Nerf Longstrike CS-6 rifle, a crazy-looking three-foot beast of a gun that shoots little foam darts from orange clips. I’d seen pictures online of people who had modified their Nerf guns to look retro-futuristic, especially the “steampunk” style (go to Google and search for “steampunk nerf guns”). I got an odd look from my mother that’s to be expected when your 27-year-old son asks for a toy gun for Christmas.

A stock image of a Nerf Longstrike CS-6.

A few weeks later, I had amassed all the needed materials for the modification: multiple bottles of paint (lots of DecoArt Dark Chocolate, a bottle each of Lamp Black, Honey Brown, and Metallic Pewter, plus another brand of shiny Turquoise Blue), some cheap brushes (I know, I know, but I’m hard on brushes ), some Metal Powders (Copper, Platinum, Rust, and Brass), a Micron Pen, a can of Rustoleum Plastic Primer, a can of Krylon Fusion Satin Black, and a can of Krylon Matte Varnish. I also had a sanding pad, Dremel tool with sanding drum, and some small screwdrivers.

First came the arduous task of taking the gun apart. After removing about 30 small screws and prying the thing apart with a tack hammer, I finally had the gun in pieces. Then I put it back together, and took it back apart again. Why? Look how complicated this thing is!

The inside of a Nerf gun. My hat's off to the people who engineer this stuff.

All those little springs and parts had to go back in the way they came…hoo boy! Undaunted, I proceeded with sanding all the raised “NERF” logos and the like off the gun’s exterior (because aliens don’t carry Nerf guns) with a Dremel. I wet sanded the areas that I’d got with the Dremel and washed the entire gun, because sanding a plastic gun with a Dremel makes lots of blue sticky particles fly everywhere, including into your hair.

Next, I laid out all the parts to be painted on a work table and coated everything with plastic primer. I let that dry for a day. Then I broke out the can of Krylon Fusion. Now, I love Krylon Fusion. It sticks to plastic like nothing else. I painted parts of my car interior with it, and they’ve stayed painted for about 6 years, as long as you follow the directions (light coats, drying times, etc). So I gave everything a light coat and then…wait, what? What’s this the paint is doing? Almost immediately, the paint started crazing everywhere! At first I was like, nooooo! Then I started looking at it, and thinking about what the gun was going to look like. Hmmm…it’s kind of nice. It looks like the texture of hand-beaten metal. Very fitting. I don’t know what caused it (maybe the primer reacted with the Krylon, or it was too cold in the garage), but I doubt I could re-create this effect. So…if you try this, your results may vary.

Lots of parts to paint!

After letting everything dry for a few days, the real fun started. I spend the next week and a half painting each piece. In truth, I hadn’t a clue what I was doing at first – I sort of made it up as I went along. I started with a rich copper patina, made with the Dark Chocolate and Copper metal powders. The look of the first coat of metal-powder-infused paint made me a believer in them, and the project in general. Next up was a sort-of aged iron patina (Rust powder plus Dark Chocolate with a touch of black), then Brass (Brass Powder mixed with Honey Brown), and finally a nice aged silver (Platinum powder in Pewter). I wanted the inside of the gun to glow with “energy”, so for that I used the Turquoise (mixed with a little Paint Adhesion Medium because some parts I hadn’t primed). After everything was dry I pieced the gun back together, checked to make sure it would still work (it did), touched up some spots, added some alien hieroglyphics with a Micron pen, and gave the whole thing a coat of Matte Varnish.

How many of you work at the kitchen table like this?

The result? A really amazing-looking “toy” gun that has gotten nothing but positive comments from the people I’ve showed it to so far. It was nice to spend some time on a real art project and I appreciate what Patty does more (even though I’m sure she would have chuckled at some of my painting techniques lol). So if you’ve got a kid that’s in to Nerf guns, maybe you could give them a special present of a custom gun that will be the envy of the other kids (please note that the durability of the custom finish is, um, somewhat less than that of a regular Nerf gun).

The finished product!

Detail of the barrel, showing the blue "energy" tube underneath.

Detail of gun. It's still functional. Also, part of the scope (top right) went missing right before these pictures were taken. I haven't the slightest idea where it went.

P.S. What about Club Kairos? Well, the night was a success. We all had a great time, and as another side project, I made this image of myself. Yeah, it’s cheesy, but fun.

Fixin' to shoot some of them extra-terrestrials.

About the Author

Written by Dustin

Dustin is a recent graduate (BFA Visual Arts - Graphic Design) of the University of Rio Grande. He grew up in and around Gallipolis, OH (home of Creative Arts Lifestyle) and dabbles in a wide variety of art and media, and enjoys good clean geeky fun with friends, especially if there's food involved.