At this point I've modified and painted three different Nerf blasters, and I was struck by a memory of a dart blaster I had years ago, but surely had been lost to the ravages of time. After a few days of wondering, I pulled out all of my storage boxes (more annoying than it sounds) and went through everything to take a look. Turns out I still had it!
As you can imagine, I was delighted. This particular blaster (I discovered later) is called the Hidden Shot, because you can slide the "grip" up into the blaster's body, and the turret can be folded down, to make for a lower-profile blaster while carrying it.
The first step, as usual, was to remove the air restrictor from the blaster, in order to give it more power. However, the AR on this particular blaster was a massive pain to remove, and if you happen to own one of these, honestly, you're better off just leaving it alone. The ARs in most Nerf blasters are fixed in place, and cannot rotate by themselves. For blasters that don't come apart completely (like this one), this makes it extremely easy to reach in with a pair of needle-nosed, twist a few times, and pull the prong out. Then you can go in with a long drill bit and clean things out. However, the Hidden Shot was built before that design choice. Thus, in order to get it out, I had to get creative. What I did was use a dremel to cut a small slit in the top of the barrel so that I could reach inside and remove the AR prong that way instead. The hole was then filled in with epoxy (the hole had to be filled up in order to prevent air leakage).
Once it was in there, I spent a lot of time (as you can probably see in the picture) sanding the epoxy down to be as flush as possible. If you've never sanded epoxy, then take it from me. IT IS ANNOYING. Anyway, I did eventually get the AR out, and here's a down-the-barrel shot to prove it.
So, with the blaster modified as much as I wanted to, I set out to begin the painting process. Up to this point with my previous three blasters, I had pretty much winged it when it came to choosing my paint colors, sticking with nice and safe color choices of black, grey, and silver. Over on nerfhaven.com I had found a few templates of nerf blasters (basically 2D wireframe of the blaster), but they weren't of the blasters I was wanting to paint. So, in typical fashion I decided that if you wanted something done, you ought to do it yourself.
My first thought was to use programs I already had, like Paint Shop Pro, add a layer on top of a picture I took, and then trace the blaster. After removing the picture, only the outline would remain. Unfortunately, this plan quickly failed as all of the graphics programs I had didn't use vector graphics. The name of what they use escapes me at the moment. So, I set out to find a free vector graphics program to do the same thing. Oh, I should mention that the reason why I wanted a vector program is that unlike "traditional" programs like PSP or MS Paint, a vector program scales the image up or down based on the lines drawn, and you can blow it up huge and never get the pixellated effects we all know and hate. The program I eventually found is called Inkscape, and I adore it. It's free, and does exactly what I was hoping for. Take a picture, import it into the program, trace over it, take the picture away, and viola! An awesome-looking wireframe outline of whatever you traced, ready to be color-filled as desired. No more spray paint color guesswork! Here's a few examples of what I did with Inkscape.
So, I didn't end up branching out too much with my color selections this go-around for the Hidden Shot, but I'm satisfied with my choices. Since I had my template figured out, it was time to bring on the painting!
As before, I'm using my wood sticks impaled into cheap foam blocks acquired from the dollar store. Every piece is roughed up with sandpaper so the paint has something to stick to. Also, this blaster I decided to paint without using vinyl dye, and instead only using the Krylon Fusion brand of spray paint, just to see if I liked the results. And now, progress pic spam.
At this point the blaster is done being painted, and just needs to be re-assembled. But before I throw up that picture, here are my thoughts of the process. Vinyl Dye, as the name implies, dyes the plastic a different color, it doesn't build up on the target, or create layers. Krylon Fusion, on the other hand, does. For some blasters, this isn't an issue, especially if the only moving parts are internal pieces that don't need to be painted at all. For others, such as the Maverick or this Hidden Shot, which have movable parts (the rotating barrel and hide-able grip on this blaster, for example) are less of a good option for the Fusion paint, because due to the layers, those pieces are now much tighter than they were before, and don't move easily or without forcing it, which can leave rub marks from paint rubbing on paint. So, if you have moving pieces, it's a good idea to either go with Vinyl Dye, or use the Fusion but be prepared to sand down any pieces and spots that might rub up against each other, to prevent them from making physical contact. Regardless, I'm very satisfied with how this blaster turned out. Take a look!
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