Roscoeflage - An experiment in pit bulls, spray paint, and fabric stores
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In my Kentucky adventure, I had brought along an Axis that I had thrown together and hadn't even had the time to paint or install a muzzle device. Upon coming home and cleaning the rat rod, I decided the first thing it would need was a paint job. At the dog park I frequent I had noticed my brindle-coated buddy would seemingly disappear into the underbrush when romping around with other dogs. I decided to base my camo off my dog's, Roscoe, coat...and to get him a brighter harness.
https://i.imgur.com/rSkYYkZ.png
I considered a number of ways of accomplishing this, but I eventually found my solution while looking for that laundry bag/fishnet mesh at my local JoAnn Fabrics. The answer was a lime green foiled zebra-pattern tulle fabric that, at the time, was $8 a yard (though it seems to be on sale this week online). I only needed a yard, and, unlike some other shiny tulles I had purchased in the past, this one did not seem to be shedding glitter.
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The fabric comprises a very fine mesh with the zebra pattern fused in with some sort of metallic foil in a zebra pattern. The outlines of the fine mesh were visible in the paint at first, but after clearcoating the rifle, the blotches of color seemed to meld together. The fabric also seems to be holding up to the paint just fine. I conducted a trial run on some cardboard just to be sure it wouldn't melt or ruin the paint.
https://i.imgur.com/qzJyDwA.png
The first step after masking off the internal areas of the receiver and muzzle was to coat the whole rifle in Rustoleum' camouflage color Earth Brown. I painted the barreled receiver and stock separately and let the paint cure for 24 hours. The second color was Rustoleum flat brown. In retrospect, I should have used a slightly lighter brown, even if it was satin instead of flat or matte.
The fabric went over the side facing up and either the top or bottom of the rifle. Just as a convention, I painted the bottom of the rifle when the right side was up and the top of the rifle when the left side was up. I also didn't bother to get the fabric "just so" along the whole rifle. Rather, I would get it how I wanted it in a certain area, spray, wait a few minutes, spray again, wait a few more minutes until the paint flashed off, and then rearrange the fabric for the next section. The process repeated along the length of the rifle. When I got to the end, I waited about 10 minutes and then flipped the gun onto the other side before starting over again.
After the last section was painted, I removed the fabric and noticed the low contract between the browns. To break up the outline, I sprayed Rustoleum camouflage color Khaki directly into the bristles of a chip brush and flung the paint onto the stock. I also tried to get Forest Green to make tiny droplets by spraying it from a ways away, but only managed to add a green hue to some areas.
Because my face seems to exude some sort of oily acid that melts paint, I coated the whole shebang with clear matte finish, let it dry 24 hours, separated the stock from the barreled receiver, and applied a light coat to each half separately. After another 24 hours, it was ready to shoot!
https://i.imgur.com/pr2Ruf6.png
I think it looks pretty good! A lighter contrasting color would have been better, and the green just muddied the pattern in places, but overall it's not a bad effect. Not as good as the original:
https://i.imgur.com/LGSYSW4.png
I had previously screwed around with spray paint and fabric, but the zebra tulle leaves a really cool pattern. There are, of course, plenty of other patterned mesh fabrics I left on their bolts, so this is open for experimentation!
