Can I Paint My Airsoft Gun Orange

Desire to give your AEG or GBB a fresh coat of paint, but dislocated near where to start? Don't sweat! Nosotros'll walk you through the basics, prep, and some finer points of breaking up your airsoft gun's natural black silhouette.

LCT-AK74M with completed paintjob — LCT-AK74M with completed paint job

Painting your gun for the commencement fourth dimension can be a bit intimidating if you aren't quite sure how to get about it –and there'south definitely something slightly unnerving well-nigh taking those start steps in altering your gun's sleek, all-blackness appearance.

However, painting your gun is quite easy once you go the hang of information technology, and tin add both a touch of personal flair and assist with concealment to kick!

Choosing Your Paints

Showtime things first–a word about paints! While many folks like to stick to the standard Krylon flat cover-up line, I personally prefer flat model paints available from Tamiya, Model Masters, and Testors, which you can generally find at whatever model-oriented hobby shop.

Not only is the range of colors much more varied (compared to Krlyon'due south typical khaki, brown and olive drab), but the paints tend to clothing much more than quickly as well – which is awesome if you're subsequently that iconic "battleworn" look merely want information technology to occur naturally!

Now that we've got out of the way, allow's get started!

What You'll Need

The airsoft gun you're going to paint (duh)
Your paint of choice (duh)
Some blazon of surface to pigment on, such every bit a flat cardboard box
A mesh laundry handbag if yous'd like to add a sort of 'snakeskin' pattern to your gun
Standard painter's tape if you lot're concerned nigh roofing up any function of your gun – such as the cage, any trademarks yous don't desire to paint over, the hop-upward unit, etc.

Ever start by giving your gun a practiced wipedown of all exterior surfaces. We want to give the paint the cleanest surface possible to bond to, and so brand sure you don't have also much congenital-upwards grime or gunk anywhere on your receiver, rails, stock, etc.

LCT AK with Zenimei Zenit Parts, Prepaint

Endeavour to get into your projection knowing roughly what kind of design y'all're aiming for. Personally, I tend to stick to alternating diagonal stripes, only it'southward of import to lay downward a base coat first.

Generally, I like to get from the darkest color in my palette up to the lightest, so my base coat here is going to be comprised of Model Main Light World.

LCT AK-74M with Light Earth Base Coat — LCT AK-74M with Light Earth Base Glaze

As yous tin can run across, there are some parts I didn't hit very hard, and that'southward intentional. The goal is to use short, brisk swiping motions to "dust" the gun to your desired level of color saturation from about ~1-2 feet away from the receiver. Make sure you're not property downwardly the spray nozzle and creating pools of pigment! A little goes a long way.

Closeup of LCT AK-74M receiver with base coat applied — Closeup of LCT AK-74M receiver with base glaze practical

Y'all'll also detect that I don't usually bother taping upwardly my magazine well or barrel, but I've got pretty good control with the tin can and am non super worried about information technology. If it's your starting time time, you may desire to consider taping these areas off just to give yous some peace of listen!

Depending on the temperature of your environment, you'll desire to give the pigment ~three-5 minutes to dry before flipping simply so that you don't smudge information technology.

At present that we've got our Light Earth base tone sprayed evenly on both sides, information technology's time for some stripes! I chose to go with the side by side darkest tan in my palette–Model Primary SAC Bomber Tan, every bit it creates a dainty dissimilarity between the Light World base of operations.

While contrast isn't generally something yous want in a pigment task meant to blend in, nosotros're going to go back and smooth these lines out later, so don't worry.

LCT AK-74M with first coat of stripes applied.

Don't go defenseless up likewise much with the placement of the stripes or making sure that they're perfectly even–very rarely do y'all discover perfectly geometric shapes within nature, and presumably, you'll exist attempting to hibernate within a natural environment, so have fun with it!

I usually piece of work from the rear towards the muzzle of the gun, using the same brisk swipes to create diagonal disruptive lines that too lean towards the muzzle. This is what I find works best for me, simply once more, experiment!

I'll usually try to match upward my stripes on the opposite side of the receiver, which makes adding connective splashes of colour across the top plane of your burglarize much easier than doing it in reverse, as seen beneath.

Matching the stripes on the top rail. — Matching the stripes on the pinnacle track.

Now that we've got our basic framework out of the way, it's time to offset working in our master colors!

This gun was painted specifically to blend into the environment of the Colina 559 airsoft field in Clovis, California for Milsim Due west'south Route to Kharkiv consequence. As Hill 559 generally tends to exist quite dark-green this fourth dimension of year, we're going to make this a primarily green rifle–but at that place are patently many other naturally occurring colors even in a green-dominated environment.

We commencement with our 'earthy tones' first and add greens on meridian, equally information technology's roughly similar to the way these colors present out in the wild.

Fourth dimension for green! I'm using Model Primary Olive Drab for this portion, as I quite like that information technology'south a lot closer to a vintage war machine light-green than your standard Krylon colors, which tend to be a fleck too nighttime for my gustation.

This is also where we'll start using our mesh laundry bag to brainstorm creating a "snakeskin" pattern on the rifle. Make sure you've got your bag as flat as possible if you lot want crisper lines, and further away if yous'd like them a bit fuzzy. Play around and see what works for yous!

I like to use our olive drab to begin "blending" the infinite between our calorie-free earth base coat and tan stripes. This reduces contrast overall and volition help with breaking up the gun's shape.

You can too then ditch the bag and add some further green dusting along the edges of the snakeskin blueprint so that your greenish layer fades in and out of the pattern. This should help ensure that no one particular area is going to describe too much attention to the center.

LCT AK-74M with Olive Drab Snakeskin Applied

I and then applied the same process to the other side of the receiver, getting a little bit more than liberal with the awarding of the olive drab every bit the whole pattern starting coming together. Again, there are no rigid rules here, and experimentation is ever going to yield the all-time results.

You can go as heavy or every bit low-cal as you want in the application of the design! I personally tend to think something a chip more subdued that sort of picks upwards and disappears on top of our base of operations colors looks all-time.

Finally, we're going to add together one of my favorite colors to pigment with overall–Model Main Afrika Mustard! While the sort of obnoxiously bright yellow doesn't blend into much on its own, it does a pretty nifty job of simulating the tone of expressionless underbrush when mixed into an existing palette, and that's exactly what we're going to do here.

LCT AK-74M with Model Master Afrika Mustard Stripes

Using the same idea every bit before, we're going to "split the difference" and utilize the Afrika Mustard to begin blurring the lines betwixt our existing colors so that they begin to flow pretty seamlessly into one some other. Compared to our previous striping layers, y'all'll likely want to be a bit lighter here – the goal is a nice, subtle "dusted" effect more than than a bold, obvious line.

Keep blending!

By all means, don't experience limited to sticking with lines facing the same management! Every bit I'm nearing the end of the pigment job here, I began adding more splashes of color here and there just to break upward any expanse that felt oversaturated with a dominant color, if that makes sense.

The snakeskin pattern up close. — The snakeskin pattern upwards close.

There actually are no rights and wrongs here, and I can't emphasize that enough. Y'all'll know your environment ameliorate than anyone, and what color palette and design is going to piece of work all-time within it. This wound up existence my finished product afterward my final blending process. I'one thousand pretty happy with it!

The indoor lighting also does a bit better of a job at capturing the paint job's truthful color tone than our outdoor, sunset lighting–so mayhap this gives you a better idea of what I was going for:

Obviously, you don't wanna paint your optic. — Obviously, you lot don't wanna paint your optic.

And lastly, hither's a shot from the field and event this gun was painted for, simply for good measure!

Was this guide helpful? How did your paint job come up out? Let us know below! Getting ready for your get-go milsim upshot? Check out our milsim basics guide!