How to Paint Any Prop to Look Amazing!

In this Instructable I want to teach you one simple painting technique that can turn any cheep Halloween prop into a frightening masterpiece.

I chose four very different masks from Dollarama to show how the same basic method will work on each, regardless of style or colour scheme.

Masks from Dollarama:

One orange Jack-O-Lantern

One white skull

One green witch

One red demon

Paint:

Black Primer

Acrylics for Jack - Orange, Red, Brown, Olive Green, Black, Buttercream

Acrylics for skull - Buttercream, Olive Green, Dark Purple, Brown, Black

Acrylics for witch - Olive Green, Brown, Black, Red, Buttercream

Acrylics for demon - Orange, Red, Brown, Black, Buttercream

Oil Paints for all: Brown, Green, Black, White and spirits to mix

**Note: You do not need fancy or expensive paints for this. Student grade and dollar store paints work just fine.**

Tools:

Paper towel

Stiff paint brushes for dry brushing

Flat brush and small container for oil wash

Small brush for black details and small container for water

Disposable eyeshadow brushes

In a well ventilated area (or outside if weather permits), spray an even coat of black primer over each mask.

After the primer has dried, apply a second layer, making sure you have even coverage from all angles. Let dry completely.

Though it may sound counterintuitive, the base coat should be opposite the main colour. You want to create a dark shadow on the edges and in the cervices that will make the main colour pop and look more natural. This is why it is considered the 'complimentary' colour.

Jack and the demon will have the main colours of red-orange and orange-red, so paint the base coat for each of them with the olive green. You can use any shade of green, this just happened to be the one I liked best.

For the skull, I wanted it to have a yellow hue instead of striking white, so the opposite of yellow is a purple tone. Paint the skull dark purple.

The witch will have green skin so paint the base coat of the witch red.

**Note: I originally tried to use the airbrush for speed but cheep acrylics don't go through an airbrush very smoothly so I switched to dry brushing.**

This is the step you can really let loose and have some fun. Time for the main colours!

It is important to remember that every time you paint something one colour, use three, minimum. You don't want your Halloween props to look flat, so you need to add depth through colour. Trust the process.

Keep in mind that for this part you aren't painting in any details. The masks themselves have details in the texture, you are just adding colour.

For Jack, dry brush orange on most of the raised elements, red over the orange where they begin to recede and brown over the red in the shadows. Orange, brown and buttercream on the stem, and some buttercream in the mouth where the pumpkin flesh would naturally be lighter.

For the demon, dry brush red over the majority of the mask, orange over the red to create a highlight on the raised parts and brown over the orange and red to follow the shadows. I added an extra, very light dry brushing of buttercream over the flesh of the demon because personally I don't find bright red skin scary. It's a bit too cartoony for me so I wanted to neutralize it a bit more.

Dry brush brown over the horns, then orange over the brown and buttercream over the orange. Repeat for the teeth.

For the witch, dry brush olive green over the majority of the mask. Dry brush red over the green on the eyes, tip of the nose and the lips and a bit of buttercream to highlight and neutralize to green flesh a bit. Again, its really easy to get a cartoony look with green and we want to keep it more realistic.

For the skull, dry brush the raise elements with buttercream, leaving the edges. This mask makes a very wide skull so we want to leave more shadow on the edges. Push the brush into the cervices around the teeth and jaw. They are very deep and large and again we are trying to avoid cartoony. Dry brush brown and olive green in the recesses.

For All, using a wet, fine tipped brush, add black to the areas that would be gone. This is not a shadow, the shadows are already created with colours, this is for the parts of the masks where holes would be.

Ex. Between the teeth and jaw bone of the skull, the noses on Jack and the skull, and the mouth of Jack and the demon.

In a small container, mix brown, green and a small amount of black oil paint with some spirit. For Jack and the demon, use more brown than green. For the witch and skull, use more green than brown.

Mix the paint well and apply liberally to the entire surface of each mask. When you are finished applying the oil wash to the last mask you will be ready to start wiping it off the first.

Using paper towel (and gloves if you don't want oil paint all over your hands), wipe the oil wash off the masks, one at a time. Wipe large areas with paper towel and smaller, deeper areas with disposable eyeshadow brushes. This part of the painting technique helps blend everything together and creates a cohesive, natural look.

When you wipe the oil wash off the masks, they will appear darker than before. If you want to bring back some more intense highlights there is a very simple method.

Using a small amount of white oil paint, tap gently onto the area you want highlighted (like the browbone of the skull or horns on the demon) and blend it with your fingertip. If you feel you added too much, you can easily wipe it away.

Takeaway

Using this technique you can easily paint any prop to look amazing! Here are the key takeaways from this Instructable:

1. Pick props with good structure and don't worry about the awful paint job or how cartoony you think the subject is at this point.
2. Prime in black and make the shadow the complimentary colour of the main colour.
3. For every colour you want, use three colours (or even three shades of the same colour) to create depth.
4. Oil wash for cohesion.
5. Highlight using oil paint to have more control over blending.
6. Most importantly: Trust the Process! You may not think it's coming along, but by the end you will by impressed by how amazing your props turn out.