Mal’s Pistol

Hello again!  Remember last week when I showed you the holster I made for my Malcom Reynolds Cosplay?

 

And the little sneak peak of the gun inside?  Well, I’m here today to show you how I painted the gun!  I did a really quick job on it (ran out of time before the con and all), but I was happy with it’s results as a cosplay piece.

To start, I had a resin prop that my mother in law purchased for me for Christmas one year.  You can occasionally find it on Amazon (here, affiliate link), though you should be aware that it isn’t really the best replica.  However, since it spent the entire day in the holster, and I didn’t want to bring my more expensive replica, which I would have been livid if I broke or lost, I figured it was a good compromise for the con.  I started out with a purely white resin gun.

I didn’t put on the screws that go near the front (you’ll see those in a minute) since I had a hard time finding something that would adhere and stay adhered.  The first step was to file down all of the mold seams and paint the whole thing black.  Remember before when I said I was running out of time?  Well… I didn’t take pictures because of that either.  I was more concerned with getting everything done than properly documenting it at the time. I tried to do a mock up to show what the gun might look like in Photoshop, but there were too many blue tones to get a decent mock up.  So, you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Then I pulled out all my metallic paints and thought about what colors I wanted use, how they matched up with the painted replica I had, and realized that I didn’t have time to paint it.  Oh no!  What was I going to do!  I couldn’t not have a gun after I went through all that work on the holster!

Never fear!  Rub ‘n Buff is here!  Seriously guys, I used my antique gold Rub ‘n Buff for the barrel, some silver Rub ‘n Buff for the trigger mechanism and screws, and a bit of leather brown paint from Reaper for the leather grip.  The whole thing took me about 20 minutes to paint.  It’s not the fanciest paint job in the world, but I was really happy with the end product for the effort.

I also happen to own the QmX replica, so you can see the difference between the two below.  The bottom one is the QmX and the upper one is the one I painted.  You’ll notice that there are some pretty big differences in proportions between the two, plus on the QmX one you can see the screws.  The antique gold Rub ‘n Buff is a bit more gold than the QmX replica, but it’s a good enough facsimile for me.  Like I said, I’d rather have something that’s not quite right on me if I were to break it or lose it at the con.

 

Seriously though, the whole thing took me less than an hour to sand, prime, and buff.  For that kind of effort, I’ll take it!  Next up, I’ll show you the whole Malcom Reynolds Costume!  I had two cosplays that I wore to the Con though, and both were gender benders.  I’ll leave you to muse on what the other outfit was in the  meantime.  I can’t wait to show you all the final project!

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