Introduction: Making a Rust Finish With Acrylic Paint

By Natasha Matthews
About: I am a maker from the St. Louis area. I have spent a lot of time playing video games and watching anime. I am finally jumping into the world of making things I like from these places.

I have recently watched my boyfriend pay Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch. He is currently playing with the powered up master sword where the blade glows a soft blue. I wanted to practice my fabrication skills before I try powered up Master Sword build. I built the rusty version from the start of the game. More importantly I wanted to try out thing a rusting paint finish. Here are the steps I took for my paint job.

Supplies

Red Acrylic Paint

Orange Acrylic Paint

Brown Acrylic Paint

Small Chip Brush

paper towels

Link’s Master Sword

Step 1: ​Thin Red Coat

Brush on a layer of red paint in the general area you want the rust spots to be. While the paint is still wet take your paper towel and wipe off the red paint. It should leave transparent red stain. Do this as many times as you want. It will depend on how red you would like your rust to be. In my case I just did this layer once. I want to final look to have a darker brown finish but with red undertone.

Step 2: ​Orange Coat

I added my orange paint in the same spot as the red paint. One main difference here I use the stippling technique. I tap the end of the brush on the sword to make small dots on each pass. This will blend the paint together and also crate a nice texture that will be similar to rust. Let this layer dry until tacky before moving on to the next layer.

Step 3: ​Brown Coat

On this layer I use the same stippling technique. I went pretty heavy with this layer. I wanted the final result to be mainly brown but I wanted some of the red and orange to peak through a bit. I ended up doing two layers of brown to get the result I was looking for. I did let the first layer of brown paint to dry completely before doing my second layer