Painting Iron Man

[yeehah1]

12 09 2019

Hi All,

I hope this is in the right forum but I was looking for tips on how to paint an Iron Man model, specifically the red.

I was wondering what shade or red would be accurate for the armour and how would you get that nice metallic sheen?

 

I would prefer to brush paint this and not airbrush it if at all possible but I would consider aerosols.

 

Can anyone help please?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Liam

[CT7567]

This is probably a decent placee to start, but you may also get some helpful info from the auto subforum - since the "candy apple red" you're shooting for is a traditional car finish (as was the inspiration in the first film!).

 

I'm not enough of an Iron Man fan to give you an exact match, but I can offer a few general suggestions.

 

First, the type of model you have will drive some considerations about the finish. If it's a plastic or resin kit you're pretty free to use any paint you prefer, but if the kit is molded in a soft vinyl material you have to be more careful about compatability of paint.

 

Since the red finish is a metallic color, a spray finish will give you much better results than brush painting. If you look closely at a metallic paint you can see the individual "flakes" of metallic pigment that are suspended in a translucent binder. Depending on the exact finish, there may be several of these translucent layers over a base color and/or primer. Unless your model is extremely large it probably won't be necessary to do more than a 2-coat finish, since the "layered" appearance doesn't really scale down.

 

In addition to checking the other forums here, I'd suggest two other sites:

 

Starship Modeler

Probably the single best sci-fi specific modeling site I've found. Things tend to focus on the major sci-fi media franchises (Star Wars, Star Trek) but there is an abundance of other work including superhero models like yours.

 

Replica Prop Forum (aka The RPF)

This is a great source of techniques and reference info from people building both scale models and 1:1 props and costumes from all sorts of movies and TV shows. You can try looking under both the modeling subforum and the costuming section, as several folks have researched the finish to build their own full-size Iron Man armor.

 

Hope all of the above is helpful, and you come back here to share what you've found and how your model progresses!

[Mick4350]

There is an article in Airfix Modelworld # 32 ( Sept. 2013 ) with a build of the Dragon Models Iron Man Mk VII.

[cmatthewbacon]

 

This is is done with Tamiya sprays. TS-95 Pure Metallic Red over TS-84 Metallic Gold. Painted gold overall, with light coats of the red to allow the gold sheen to come through...

best,

M.