PAINTING THE PULSE RIFLE

As mentioned in a previous post, I decided to not go on the hunt for the infamous 'Brown Bess' paint (or a close match), but instead decided upon a colour that seemed to be a somewhat halfway-house between Brown Bess & Olive Drab; Revell's NATO Olive Matt (146). In addition to painting the shrouds, the magazine base and some of the plates NATO Olive, the rest of the gun would be painted Revell Black Silk Aqua (302), except for the pistol grip and the pump-action grip which would be painted Revell Black Matt (108). Below is a list of the colours used for this rebuild:

• Revell NATO Olive Matt Aqua Colour Acrylic Paint 18ml (146) - SHROUD & MAGAZINE BASE

• Revell Black Matt Aqua Colour Acrylic Paint 18ml (108) - PISTOL GRIP AND PUMP-ACTION

• Revell Black Silk Aqua Colour Acrylic Paint 18ml (302) - EVERYTHING ELSE

• Revell Silver Metallic Aqua Colour Acrylic Paint 18ml (190) - WEATHERING

I had no previous experience of using Revell's acrylic "Aqua" paints - I had always used Humbrol enamels before this. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out that the best thing to thin it with is Methylated Spirits, and not water (as many others have suggested). The NATO Olive paint I had was particularly thick - almost like a 'set honey' consistency - so needed a lot of thinning down before being able to be airbrushed. The recommended consistency is that it should be 'milky', but trial and error will get you there. I found that airbrushing the Revell's Aqua colours to be quite painful and laborious; no matter how much I thinned them, they would quite quickly congeal and block the airbrush, requiring a lot of cleaning before being able to continue spray-painting.  Not the most fun I've ever had!

The kit I used is the same ones as when I did my Terminator Endo skull build, namely a mini air compressor and dual-action siphon-fed airbrush, which can be bought quite cheaply on sites such as eBay.

Remember to always work in a well ventilated room when using chemicals such as Methylated Spirits. And always mix your paint + meths mixture thoroughly before spraying. I secured the various parts to gardening sticks with tape, and mounted them onto an old tin of paint to keep them upright when spraying and drying. Making a makeshift mini spray booth using an old cardboard box was sufficient for my needs. Before painting, give the parts a quick wipe-down with an old glasses cloth to remove any oil, dirt or dust, and then spray in a smooth continuous motion. You'll find that the paint will appear to dry within seconds, though I'd recommend leaving it for a few hours to make sure they're properly dried.

Here's the stripped down rifle after painting. Some of the parts are still masked off, which was done to prevent any spray-over onto wiring or moving components. You can also see bottom-right in the second image the small trigger I fabricated from plastic to add underneath the SPAS shotgun cage, which is missing on the Snow Wolf kit. It also required a small hole cutting into the base of the SPAS cage for it be inserted through (I used a simple Electric Multi-tool to cut the hole, and tidied the edges with a file). It's not-functional, but is a detail I wanted to include to make the Pulse Rifle feel more complete. Next to it you can also see a small rectangle I fabricated with a couple of screw-heads attached. This is to add a detail on one side of the pump-action grip which is also missing from the kit, but is a detail that's present on most (if not all) of the screen-used guns. I assume it's a fixing for the grip to attach it to the slider mechanism inside the SPAS cage & Remington shotgun innards.