SLA 3D Printer Project Log 13: Paint with the colours of the Wickes

Oh dear...  It had to be crossed eventually...  This is a skillset I'll freely admit I have dishonourably neglected...  Painting.

For someone who is in a hobby all about making faithful recreations where razor-sharp details abound, I need some serious work on this skill, and what better place to begin than on a project that technically doesn't even require painting if the printer is kept indoors?  My original plan was to hang up the panels, spray them glorious, and have done with it; so far, it seems to be going well:

Apart from it resembling a grey-scale map of German Mottled Camouflage; economy or consistency?  The agony of choice...

I'm greatly enthused by the idea of spray-painting, if not because it's the only way my gibbon hands can get a decent coat down, it also has these goodies:

1.  More rapid application, also dries faster
2.  Cleaner in application, also leaves the work surface free from ghastly lumps of paint
3. Thinner coat means paint is less liable to be chipped off
4. Greater consistency is achievable with lower skill level
5. Minimal equipment is required – I probably should have hung the panels up with a wire but this isn't strictly necessary

All promising stuff, but alas it is tempered by these here bugbears:

1. Terrible with thin edges – you can either underspray the edge or overspray the sides, unless you have an adjustable airbrush or a spray can with multiple nozzles
2. Expensive per area covered – Standard outdoor paint cans promise 10m^2 per can while you'd be lucky to get 5m^2 out of the same money spent on spray paint
3. Solvents released to atmosphere, requires a well-ventilated area (or a shed full of panel gaps!)

Just to illustrate point 1, I have evidence of both cases, as if that's something to be proud of!

What is this “consistency” you speak of?  Do you think it'll ever catch on?

For the sake of comparison, by the way, I painted the rear panel with outdoor white satin paint (sans primer for speed reasons); am I so stoked by these results?  Short answer, no.  Long answer, very much no.

Too embarrassed to paint my Airfix models as a child, can you tell?

The worst part about such blobby edges is the fact that less is more when painting; specifically, the blobs are always the first paint to chip off.

The black lines are brush bristles, go me.

The coat does look thicker at least; don't worry, I was planning to drill the holes out from 4mm to 5mm anyway :)

Enough depressing spectacles of incompetence, here's a beautiful image of what happens when you immerse a stainless steel offcut rod (used as a paint stirrer) bathe in a tub of water and eco-turps:

Keep your skills high and your pomposity low...