A while ago a couple members were showing interest in the paint job on the lower receiver of one of my carbines. Now, frankly and unfortunately, most of my paint jobs are the result of experimentation, often at random times (sometimes in the middle of the night, when trying to sleep..) Because of this, I had to kind of rack my brain to remember how I did this one. What fallows in a step by step of how I think it was painted...
You will need:
1 piece paper, cut with a wavy pattern down one edge. As you can see, I cut both sides so I could have two degrees of waves.
rubber glove.
Thin mesh. I used an orange sleeve, but fishnets, and really any patterned mesh material could be used. Try experimenting!
At least 2 colours of spray paint. I used 3
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Step one is important for any painting project. Make sure the surface you plan on painting is clean of dust, and mask off (or better yet, remove if applicable) any areas which you don't plan on painting
For this project, start with your lightest colour, in my case tan, and do a solid single coat. Don't bother with multiple coats, and you may end up starting over in the following step.
Once you have your base coat down, take your paper, and while while wearing your glove, produce a line (thin or thick, your choice) down the wavy edge of the paper, thus producing a line with a solid edge on one side, fading to zero on the other. This step can be surprisingly frustrating on larger objects when painting with a can, as its fairly easy to stray of the line, or paint your lines too close together, ruining the illusion. You'll end up with a pretty cool looking 'sand dune' like pattern. Some my choose to simply leave it like that, like I did with one of my pelican cases:
At this point, take your mesh and stretch it over your object. You can do this step with whatever kind of stoke you wish. I used straight lines for the reproduction, but the original may have been more sporadic.
Started with brown, and then added some green.
With the object looking something like this, pick up your glove and paper again, and this time using the base colour, paint another series of lines.
And this is more or less the end result.
On the original I used a little bit of black in very thin diagonal stripes, but ran out at one points. Obviously there are a few differences, as even minor changes in the angle and spacing you choose to paint at will produce very different results. The original was a little more cluttered, and vertical than the reproduction, so they do look a little different.
I would encourage others to expand on the process, using different angles, materials, adding layers etc.
As you can see, the upper in painted completely differently, using layers of grass laid out at random angles.
I wrote this on an iPhone, so I'm sorry for any typos you may find. Any questions, just ask.