Steampunk makeover for a toy gun by Louise Crosbie

I have a lovely friend who has been a scrapbooker for a while but wants to try some mixed media. But mixed media can often seem complicated, expensive and intimidating and can be off-putting to some people.

My friend made me aware that she felt this way when she told me she loved all my projects I share on social media but she couldn’t imagine ever trying them and they all involved so many different kinds of media that she felt a bit lost by it all. 

So, as she is also a steampunk friend, I am sharing this project with her, and people like her, in mind. 

I’m going to give a toy ‘alien ray gun’ a steampunk makeover. 

You will need:

One plastic gun, any shape or size you like.( I usually pick mine up in a charity/thrift shop or car boot sales. )

One tub/tube of black gesso.

One or more metallique waxes. 

Technically you can do this with one colour of wax or use as many as you like.

If you feel adventurous and decide to add a few embellishments, you will also need embellishments and a good glue. Heavy body gel or 3D gel are my go to.

So here is what to do. 

While you can add the gesso without preparing the plastic gun in any way, it’s going to be even better if you give it a light sand with sandpaper. Just to give the gesso a better surface to grip on to. this is because the gun is likely to get handled a lot when you are in costume.

However, because sanding or scratching some plastics can cause them to release some of the oils used to make them, I always wash the plastic in dish washing liquid after sanding. Just to neutralise any oils. 

Then it’s time to glue on any embellishments you’re going to add, (but this part is optional. The gun will still look good without them).

That’s pretty much all I’m adding. I repeated it on the other side too. 

Once all your glue has dried, just cover it in black gesso. Get into all the little hidden spaces and deep crevices. Two thin coats is always a better tactic than one thick coat. You will get a better finish and will get better coverage.

Keep your black gesso paint brush aside in some water. You will need that watery black right at the end!

Now all we have to do is add the metallique wax. 

This gun will look great even if you take a soft brush and gently brush a light coat of one colour of wax over it. Leaving some of the deeper areas in black. 

But as I have a nice choice of waxes, I went for a more colourful approach. 

I started with ‘aged brass’ for the main body of the gun and some ‘peacock’ for the ball shaped bits at the end and a touch of 'Old Denim' on the wings…

Next, I added some highlights and different metallic tones. I did this by using some ‘old silver’ and some ‘white gold’.

I could have stopped here but I added a few more touches with various waxes.

It looked good but it also looked a bit too perfect, clean and new. That didn’t look like a steampunk time traveller or adventurer had been using it much. So I left the waxes to harden for an hour then, using the wet brush Id used to apply the black gesso, I gave the whole gun a wet wash with the dirty black water the brush had been resting in. I let that dry then did the other side of the gun. 

You can use a bit of kitchen paper or rag to remove the black watery gesso from any bits you don’t want it but I mostly just let it land where it wants to. Once it dried I did add some ‘white Pearl’ highlights back onto the two ball parts so it looked like they were super shiny. 

And that’s it.  You have a steampunk blaster of your very own. 

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