Twenty Seven. That’s how many high quality photo’s the mad custom ninja KidAkira sent me to go along step by step with this intensely in-depth Dropcloth customizing Workshop. On top of that, he chose my favorite bot as his subject matter. I’m absolutely blown away by how many tasty nuggets he packed into this thing. Thanks so much brutha! I hope all you good people learn a ton from it and enjoy!
– Knives
Firstly, Thanks to Knives for inviting me to do a custom tutorial for Rad Toy review. Today I’m going to go through the process of turning a 1/6 DIY Dropcloth figure into a Brit Squad Dropcloth…
The first stage for this custom was to dismantle the Dropcloth (DC) into parts. This makes it much easier to work on each part and doesn’t leave you with any hard to reach areas. DC’s are fairly easy to pull apart, remembering to always be gentle, and the use of a hairdryer to soften the vinyl parts will make it easier still…
The next stage is to mask off each piece for laying down the basic colours. Once ready each section was sprayed with 2 to 3 light coats of paint…
Once these parts are thoroughly dry, the masking tape is removed and a very light layer of clear gloss lacquer is applied. I find the gloss finish helps the decals adhere better to the surface… I won’t go into Decal making and application in this tutorial)… Once the decals are in place and dry all the pieces are given a light coat of clear satin lacquer…
Now to begin the weathering process. For this DC i decided to go for slightly less rust than i have gone for on my previous Brit Squad bots. To achieve this affect is very simple. I use a synthetic sponge torn into small pieces to give a nice uneven texture. By dabbing the sponge into the paint and wiping the excess off, use tissue, hand or jeans; then stipple the sponge onto the areas you want weathered. Apply more or less depending on your desired effect. I used 3 different paints to achieve this finish. Citadel paints Adeptus Battlegrey, for the first layer followed by Tin Bitz and finally Mithril Silver…
The next stage of weathering is using washes. This is probably the easiest part of any custom that requires weathering and is hard to get wrong. The 2 washes I used were again from Citadel paints; Devlan Mud and Ogryn Flesh. Using a soft medium sized brush, apply the first layer of wash liberal over the areas your weathering. In this case, everywhere. Once applied, let sit for a little under a minute, then using a tissue or soft cloth, dab the excess was off. Repeat until the desired effect is achieved then repeat with second colour wash…
Once the washes have dried completely, another layer of clear satin lacquer is applied and your DC should now look like this…
Now it’s time for reassembly. Again, the DC’s are fairly easy to dismantle and put back together but the hairdryer will help if your having trouble. And again remember to be gentle and take your time…
Time now to move onto the soft parts…
Firstly I drew the Bullseye onto each side of the skirt using a compass. I then hand painted each section…
Then I applied a very watered down mix of the Citadel Adeptus Battlegrey paint to the pouches and skirt to give the base weathering layer…
Once dry, I then used the same stippling method as before building up layers of Citadel paints Adeptus Battlegrey, Scorched Brown and Skull White…
Once dry the skirt and pouches were put back on the DC…
And with weapon in hand (in this case Vanilla TQ’s Shotgun), this Brit Squad DC is ready for battle…
Cheers
KidAkira
We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Workshop. Huge thanks again to Kid Akira for putting this fantastic piece together. Now get out there and customize something!
We’d love to hear from you and check out what kind of customs you’re working on! Send us a shot of your latest custom work with a brief discription to radtoyreview@gmail.com.
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Until next time!
Rad Toy Review 
Amazing work, KidAkira. Love the look of the Brit Squad colourway.
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thanks for sharing KA!
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Really informative tutorial. One of these days I gotta try this.
Thanks KidAkira!
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Wow. Amazing tutorial. (Y)
The only thing I didn’t quite get was the painting and weathering the soft parts. Is it possible to elaborate on that part?
Thanks.
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Hey Aakash,
I’ll run it by KidAkira and see if I can get him to elaborate more.. thanks for posting!
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