Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi everyone,

We are working on some terrain (were thinking to use it for a battle session tonight) - and finding that while we've figured out that both epoxy and hot glue work well for gluing - we're pretty stumped on how to paint the stuff.

Our normal (favorite?) black primer - and some Krylon spray paint both seem to melt the pink foam and mess up the texture (plus the terrain we have when we're done smells horrible).

Is there a paint (which is sprayable?) which works better?

Photos of our bubbly, stinky terrain here: http://battlegaming1.blogspot.com/2014/08/warhammer-40k-terrain-got-glue-figured.html

Thanks

not sprayable that I am aware of, I just use cheap craft paint, seems to work fine

Only by airbrush or coat the foam with a coat or of white glue.
A cheap way to do it by brush is to take the colour you want to a DIY store & get a litre of emulsion mixed to match.

Krylon fusion H2O is supposedly foam safe (and a rattlecan).

I use house paint through an electric spraygun for painting mine, though.

I use sample pots of low gloss interior house paint to paint terrain. You can even get it matched to your favourite colour.

Pink foam and foamcore board need to be sealed against enamel type spray paints since the solvent dissolves the foam as you discovered the hard way.

This can be done by painting on a layer of watered PVA glue.

Acrylic paints are safe to paint straight on without the glue. Household acrylic emulsion is fine for painting terrain and much cheaper than using wargame paints when you want to cover a big area.

Here is what I have done anytime I am working with large styrofoam projects.


Go to ANY hardware store that mixes paint (or any paint store) and ask to look through their "mis-tints".

You can usually pick up a GALLON of paint for really cheap. Color does not matter too much at this point, just focus on your need - light color or dark color.

Take the Mis-tint and brush it onto your styrofoam project, and make sure you get every bit of it covered.

Once this is dry, you can spray paint it with any spray paint your heart desires and it wont melt - as long as you got every bit covered in the mis-tint paint.

I usualy have 2 - 1 Gallon buckets. A light color and a dark color, so that depending on the project, I have choices =D

Hope that helps some.

Two solution basicly...

1. Brush on waterbased paints like acrylics or latexbased paints

2. Airbrush acrylics

I prefer the second one but I don't do lots of terrain at this point.

There are foam-safe aerosols (Design Master is available at Michaels), if you prefer to spray and lack an airbrush. Personally, I just basecoat by brush, slapping on cheap acrylic craft paint (I'll sometimes toss a little PVA in the mix). I'd step up to a can of latex/emulsion house paint on larger projects, like others - just haven't done anything large enough to warrant it, yet.

Udo wrote:
I use sample pots of low gloss interior house paint to paint terrain. You can even get it matched to your favourite colour.

Quoted for truth. Latex house paint is the best, most economical way to paint terrain. The fact that you can get it tinted to whatever color you want (generally for free) in really small amounts and not just gallons is a bonus.