Nerf Doublestrike Project

Back in December I repainted a toy Star Wars gun into a more realistic looking Han Solo blaster. On the advice of expert prop maker Bill Doran from Punished Props, I decided to apply this technique again to a Nerf gun. I know there's a sizable Nerf modification community out there that focuses on increasing firing power, but that's not what I'm trying to do. This project is about getting better at painting, making this toy gun look more realistic, and practicing with my new airbrush. Since I'm still just starting out, a small toy gun was a good place to start, and the Nerf Doublestrike is a cheap enough gun to practice on. I got this at Walmart for about $8 on sale. And it's available on Amazon for about the same price.

One of the things I needed to do is sand off the black Zombie Strike logo, the Nerf logo on the barrel, the legal warning, and the Doublestrike logo.

So to do this, I had to take apart the gun. This is a pic of the guts, and it's also a good reference picture of where all the pieces need to go when I put the gun back together.

Everything got a good sanding. The raised parts first got sanded with a Dremel. Then everything got sanded with a sanding sponge to rough up the surface to prepare it for paint. Plastic has a tendency to not accept paint so sanding allows the paint to stick better.

The main parts got a couple coats of gray primer.

I airbrushed silver onto the barrel, and black onto the main gun body. I brushed gun metal acrylic craft paint on the hammer, trigger, and that little piece which goes on the top of the gun.

I then put everything back together referencing the "guts" photo I took earlier. I think it already looks way better.

I didn't go into this with a specific color scheme in mind, just realistic. So I decided to paint the handle and that front bottom part copper as it kinda looks like shiny wood. I also painted the wrap on the handle brown, and airbrushed some black onto the barrel to make it look like it's been fired.

I airbrushed some black into the crevices and details on the wrapped handle. I really like how this turned out. My airbrush made this detail work super easy and I'm already extremely happy with my purchase.

I did some more weathering with a silver sharpie on the edges, and some dry brushing with gun metal paint. It makes the piece look really worn.

Just a closeup of the weathering. It brings out the edge detail and makes the plastic look more like metal.

And finally a matte clear coat to take away some of the shine on the gun. I'm really pleased with how this project came out. And the gun still works! Sort of. The trigger is a little sticky, but it still fires. And I'm super happy with my airbrush purchase which is why I did this little project in the first place. In case you're wondering, I purchased a Master Airbrush and compressor from Amazon for about $80. Excellent purchase and I look forward to doing more projects like this in the future.