My Swirl practice attempts

ninjasuz · #1 02-17-2009, 01:38 AM

These are my new attempts at swirling Today.
The timber has been used many times before and i just keep painting them white again. So you can just see throught the light part and see the old attempts.
I'm going to try again tomorrow and not swirl the paint so much.
I also have metallics that i can swirl so i'm going to try them too.
I'm going to clear these tomorrow and see if they clears OK.
Let me know what you think.
And i'm open to any help you may be able to give me.
Still trying to figure out how not to get water marks?

littlephil · #2 02-17-2009, 03:49 AM

Looking pretty good! That second pic is really nice. It does look like the paint is a tad too thick though, I think I can see a few blobs.

This is one of my practices for the RG I'm going to build very soon. Its the colours I decided on. It has a few runs, mainly in the orange. Personally I think the blobs in the blue look alright because they flow with the swirl and didn't run.

EDIT: I tried a metallic blue for mine and it was really thick and didn't work well at all.

hangingmonkey · #3 02-17-2009, 10:36 AM

Nice swirls. Im trying to get started on the whole swirling thing too. Im going to swirl a gibson flying v '58 reissue with purple, black, white and metallic chrome and use a chrome finish pickguard. How much paint did you guys use when swirling, do you measure it out? Ive only had one attempt so far and I ended up putting in too much black and then tried to compensate by adding more silver and the whole thing looked like ****. In particular littlephil, thats a really nice swirl pattern youve done on that square shaped piece of wood. What kind of swirl did you make on the water surface or was it just random? Also do you guys use borax or that carageean product?

littlephil · #4 02-18-2009, 01:41 AM

I put about a tablespoon of borax in a 10 litre bucket planning to do the swirl soon after. I didnt end up doing it for about 2 days. I know if you put it in then paint straight after, it doesnt work well, at least it didnt for me. I think 1/2 hour to 1 hour later is usual.
That was a pretty random what I did. I just put all 3 colours in in a sort of triangle, then mixed them around with a stick. You really dont need much at all, I had 10ml (I think) paints and the one i've used most (orange, has been used for 4 or 5) is just under half empty.

ninjasuz · #5 02-18-2009, 03:50 AM

The blobs that you can see is water sitting on the black. This was about 5mins after i did it. I didn't use borax. Straight cold water.

Ad_Astra · #6 02-18-2009, 06:15 AM

A week ago I cut the shape of an RG and I was supposed to try swirling it black and white. Too bad I ran out of white spray, so I sprayed the "body" light blue from other side and darker blue on the other.

I dipped the thing into black, lightblue and yellow. There was WAY too much yellow and the black was WAY too thick. Gotta keep on trying =)

ninjasuz · #7 02-19-2009, 12:02 AM

Todays attempts.
I tried different timing between colours.
Black works best if left so sit before adding colours.
Green isn't a good colour to work with it breaks down to quick.
I added a little metallic gold and it works really well on the water but i haven't used it on a large scale.
The photo's didn't come out so well.

This middle one has a completely different paint sitting time between each colour, it is the best finish and all the colours worked well other than the green.
I'll use this timing and other colours (blue & purple) for my next attempt.

RG462 · #8 02-19-2009, 12:51 AM

Awesome swirls! Try swirling bigger items, as it is a more difficult task to accomplish. What paints are you using?

ninjasuz · #9 02-19-2009, 03:08 AM

I'm going to cut out some full size body templates from MDF and try that.
I'm just drawing up a body shape on Inventor(CAD) and i'll go my friends Kitchen Building shop and use his CNC Mill to cut them out.
That way i can figure out how much paint i'll be needing and the timing for each paint.

Ad_Astra · #10 02-19-2009, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RG462

Awesome swirls! Try swirling bigger items, as it is a more difficult task to accomplish. What paints are you using?

I guess you're not talking about my mess =) But I used Revell enamel colours. Found out that gloss is better than matt. Next week (or when I get more borax) I'll do new attempts. Gotta figure out good ratios.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninjasuz

I'm going to cut out some full size body templates from MDF and try that.
I'm just drawing up a body shape on Inventor(CAD) and i'll go my friends Kitchen Building shop and use his CNC Mill to cut them out.
That way i can figure out how much paint i'll be needing and the timing for each paint.

I just drew the shape of the body on a piece of wood at cut off using a (don't know what it is in english),.... Anyway, took me about 45 minutes to do that one.
I guess I'll just repaint it white and dip it again.

Lordiesel · #11 02-19-2009, 07:09 PM

Loving the middle one.

makotvjr · #12 03-10-2009, 07:26 PM

Be careful with enamels, topcoats of lacquer or polyurethanes(automotive paint) can wrinkle it.sometimes a catalyst like Marhyde "Wet Look" single stage catalyst(mixed in) helps kick the enamels. An old custom painters trick....KG

Rodney James · #13 03-10-2009, 08:31 PM

looks nice!

Lordiesel · #14 03-10-2009, 10:15 PM

These photos look very similar to my first attempt photos. Not so much the swirls themselves.... but the surroundings. Looking very good. I specially love the middle one with the pink black n yellow.

Starting with those before mixing more colours and trying with bigger pieces.
What paints are you using ninjasuz... are there any more updates?