Painting helmet

[Guest guest]

I know this has been covered before but I can't find the posts.

My airbrushing guy is blowing me off- So we have decided to paint the

background ourselves (then apply stickers and clear coat on top.)

Can someone walk me thru what works?

What kind of paints? how to apply......step by step-

I am pretty nervous but really want to do it up cute......

Thanks!

K

[Guest guest]

I just went through all of this last week, so I can share my

experience. You can use the craft acrylic paint they sell at 's

and Mod Podge to coat over everything. First of all, I recommend

painting as much of it as you can all at one time. Even if it means

leaving it off for longer than the hour. My son got his DocBand on

Monday, and I decided to do one coat of red paint late that first day,

then do another coat each hour break he had until he was in it for 23

hours. I put one coat of paint on, then he went to bed, and by

morning, it had peeled in a bunch of places and flaked off all over

his sheet. (I didn't use primer, which I've heard you can use, but now

I'm glad I didn't, since I've decided to change it up a few times

while he's wearing it, and apparently you can just peel everything off

and start fresh whenever you want.) In any case, the next day, I left

it off for like 3 hours (bad mommy!) and put 3 more coats of red paint

on it, then stickers, then 2 coats of mod podge. Then I put another

coat or two of mod podge on it each of the next two nights while he

had it off for the hour (The mod podge dries pretty quickly, which I

was suprised about). The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to

not buy big stickers! They are very hard to lay flat over the rounded

parts. Which I should have known, but for some reason I thought the

mod podge would help smooth them out. It doesn't! I even had problems

with some of the middle sized ones.

Also, I tried taping the edges because it's very important not to get

paint on the foam part, but the painter's tape wouldn't stick, so I

just did it all very carefully and didn't even try painting the edges

of the plastic (the part between the outside edge and the foam). I did

tape up the velcro strap though. Don't sand it either, apparently that

breaks down the strength of the plastic which is very bad. So just

tape, primer (if you want), 3-4 coats of paint (red and dark colors

are really tough to coat well, so you might only need 2), then as many

coats of Mod Podge as you can manage. I bought the glossy kind, which

I think looks good, but I've noticed that after my son sleeps on it,

some of the shine gets worn off in spots. Also, the edges are peeling

down in spots already, so if you want it to last, I would recommend

the primer. Oh, and clear backed stickers look better than the

paper/white backed ones.

Good luck!

Jake-17m (tort resolved/rt plagio/DocBand 2/11/08)

Jordan-4

>

> I know this has been covered before but I can't find the posts.

> My airbrushing guy is blowing me off- So we have decided to paint

the

> background ourselves (then apply stickers and clear coat on top.)

> Can someone walk me thru what works?

> What kind of paints? how to apply......step by step-

> I am pretty nervous but really want to do it up cute......

> Thanks!

> K

>

[Guest guest]

I forgot to say that a sponge brush worked great for both the paint

and the mod podge.

>

> I know this has been covered before but I can't find the posts.

> My airbrushing guy is blowing me off- So we have decided to paint

the

> background ourselves (then apply stickers and clear coat on top.)

> Can someone walk me thru what works?

> What kind of paints? how to apply......step by step-

> I am pretty nervous but really want to do it up cute......

> Thanks!

> K

>