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I'm going to paint a vending machine soon. Biggest feature is the pane on the front, and since it's a solid resin piece I'll have to figure out how to paint some glass effect on a flat surface. Anybody got any good tips how to go about this?

As a bit of extra information, if it helps, I'm not a fan of NMM or OSL (specifically if the light source is not on the model - no problems whatsoever if it's physically there). This is giving me the most trouble. Obviously glass is translucent, which the actual object is not, and reflective, which is where my distaste for NMM kicks in. If I paint it to reflect properly from one angle, it'll look off from another angle.

My best idea is to try and paint the surface somewhat dirty with hints of the goodies behind the glass and finish it with a layer of gloss varnish. Somehow. No idea how to go about that, really.

Any ideas? I'd appreciate a bit of help.

Paint a facade of the items in the vending machine, then source a piece of clear plastic to lay over the actual face of the machine? (plastic that you'd find on a blister or packaging)?

I dunno.

Thanks, I'll consider that. No idea how to pain depth on a flat surface though. I'm going to have to give that a try.

If possible id try and rout/dremel out the surface a bit if possible and use Greenstuff to maybe mold an item or two or even just make lumps that you can colour as crisps/ drinks whatever and then use the plastic idea of above with some dirt painted on both sides.

Tricky paintjob, but here's how I would go about it: I would paint all the things that are behind the glass, and then glaze over them with white in certain spots to create reflection of light. I would do 2 big lines of reflective light, this should make it look right from every angle.

Cheat, and print out a picture of the inside of a vending machine scaled to the right size, and treat it like a decal. Stick it on, gloss over the top and weather it.

 Ubl1k wrote:
If possible id try and rout/dremel out the surface a bit if possible and use Greenstuff to maybe mold an item or two or even just make lumps that you can colour as crisps/ drinks whatever and then use the plastic idea of above with some dirt painted on both sides.

If you do this you could then fill the gap with that stuff they use to make rivers and water effects, just make sure it sets level

Plastruct do a tinted mirror effect sheet, no idea what it looks like but should be able to shallow out the machine with a dremel and cut a piece to fit, bit of plasticard to cover up the edges and you're good.

https://plastruct.com/shop/plain-and-patterned-sheet/mpss-2/

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

Crispy78 wrote:
Cheat, and print out a picture of the inside of a vending machine scaled to the right size, and treat it like a decal. Stick it on, gloss over the top and weather it.

You are a genius and totally awesome. I'll strongly consider this. I'm going to find a good picture and see if I can't edit it to fit my painting style.

I can see this working well with covering it with a sheet of clear plastic. Glossing over, anybody know if printed paper reacts badly to Vallejo varnish? That's the other option.

 Huron black heart wrote:

 Ubl1k wrote:
If possible id try and rout/dremel out the surface a bit if possible and use Greenstuff to maybe mold an item or two or even just make lumps that you can colour as crisps/ drinks whatever and then use the plastic idea of above with some dirt painted on both sides.

If you do this you could then fill the gap with that stuff they use to make rivers and water effects, just make sure it sets level

I've advanced past the carving up stage, but I don't know if I could do this at all. I have water effect (if it's still good, bought it years ago), but the last time I tried it, I poured it on a ever so slightly textured piece of cardboard and after several layers you could see that same texture on the water effect. I guess it just takes skill I don't have, but that stuff is a nightmare to work with.

 Geifer wrote:
Glossing over, anybody know if printed paper reacts badly to Vallejo varnish? That's the other option.

The paper's not actually the problem - it's the ink. The last time I tried this I used an inkjet printer, and discovered that the water in the varnish cased the ink to run and my image to turn all blurry. You might have better luck using a laser printer, since they use a powdered toner fused to the paper using heat.

Thanks for that. If I try the printed picture, I'll give the clear plastic cover a try first.

You could reverse the image and print it onto clear acetate. Then mount the acetate to the machine so that the ink is facing inward. This would protect the ink and give you your glassy surface at the same time.

Interesting. Not sure I can actually do that, or rather my printer, not so much me. But it's a good idea, thanks.

So I figured if I go the print-out route, I lose nothing by giving it a try and see where hand painting gets me first. If it's bad, it'll just get covered up.

Here's a picture about the actual size of the vending machine:



And the same image zoomed in to expose my terrible handiwork:



That's how far I got and probably as far as the interior is going to get painted. Not sure yet. Ideally the weathered glass pane, whether it's painted on or on a bit of clear plastic, should add a layer of depth that is only minimally present right now. That's the idea anyway.

Thoughts? I'm not exactly unbiased, so I'd appreciate hearing from people if this looks reasonably believable or if it's trash.

Edit: The dividers between the bottle columns do stick out and are pretty close to the reflections on the bottles. The former are silver, the latter white. Doesn't seem like much of a difference in sunlight. I was thinking of repainting the dividers brass or copper.

Looks pretty good.

i figure the easiest thing to do is dirty it up a bit. especially around the edges since grime and dust would accumulate there.

also you could add some cracks.

Yeah, dirtying it up from the edges is the plan. Good idea about the cracks. That'll come in handy if I mess up somewhere and need to cover it up.

What I just noticed: second column from the left, top bottle. There's a blotch of brown wash there. I like that. It adds something that I don't see in the other bottles, round bottle content as view from a high angle. I think I'll redo the bottles to feature this. Reddish oval with orange highlights, washed brown. Perfect coke.

I really like it, but if you want to sell the impression of glass over the front, I think painting a bit of an area where glass is broken out might help. That would also allow the gloss to contrast with the not gloss (where the glass is missing)

Looks really good to me!

Thanks, guys.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I really like it, but if you want to sell the impression of glass over the front, I think painting a bit of an area where glass is broken out might help. That would also allow the gloss to contrast with the not gloss (where the glass is missing)

I like it. Broken glass it is. I'm going to try a white glaze (I think? Like, really watered down paint) on the glass to get that tiny bit of reflection on to obscure the bottles and leave the hole the normal color. Then highlights for the broken edges, off course. Then wrap up the glass with gloss varnish and finally some weathering.

This might just work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The deed is done:





I have to say, I'm reasonably happy. Not bad for a first try at 2D painting. A big thank you to everyone who helped out. I appreciate it.

So that's the glass done, a good an helpful effect to add depth. Now I'm only missing the weathering. I think I'll go fairly light on it, and as suggested focused around the edges. Got to figure out the colors, but currently I'm thinking mostly dark and medium brown, two or three different tones.

Edit: Gloss varnish is on the glass portion, but doesn't seem to do much from this angle. Which isn't a problem, really, but I didn't consider that the vending machine is stuffed into a corner from which it is unlikely to reflect light properly to look shiny.

I think it looks excellent! I do like the broken glass effect.

BTW - do you really think there would still be some cokes left in that old machine?

Looks great!

That looks excellent. Really well done!

MDSW - consider if you will, two hundred years after the apocalypse... you can still find bottles of Nuka Cola.

Thanks, guys.

 MDSW wrote:
I think it looks excellent! I do like the broken glass effect.

BTW - do you really think there would still be some cokes left in that old machine?

Out in the wild, no. But this one is in the backyard of a farm and meant to be stylish beverage storage that gets refilled as new bottles come in:



In a random location I think I'd try either a pretty smashed up, empty machine (although as much as I want to learn to paint effects, I really don't know how to paint that much nothing, so carving out that part seems like a good alternative) or use a Nuka Cola ad in place of the glass.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sauragnmon wrote:
MDSW - consider if you will, two hundred years after the apocalypse... you can still find bottles of Nuka Cola.

Too cool. My comment was tongue-in-cheek mainly, but any reason is a good reason. An excellent job!!

Hehe, yeah, I didn't catch that.

Thanks for the kind words.

Sauragnmon wrote:
MDSW - consider if you will, two hundred years after the apocalypse... you can still find bottles of Nuka Cola.

I believe in one of the games you come across a Nuka Cola factory that still functions. I wonder if there are any distributors?