Hey all new here and really excited to have found an awesome looking sci fi larp.
I was wondering if people had tips for costume and armor and advice for painting
Nerf

As far as painting nerf guns goes:
An easy thing to do is a camo paint-job. A couple of cans of flat earthy colors and some masking tape is all you need.

Tape the orange safety tip of the nerf blaster before painting(This is a requirement of nerf blaster props at FI)

Paint a coat with one of the earthy colors. If you're in a rush, you can do just one, but more than one will give you a nice solid coating, and can keep it looking nice for many games. Be sure to get in all the nooks and crannies.

Once the first coat is dry, grab one of the others and run over the blaster in a semi-random fashion. If you have any leaves or things to use as templates, you can get some interesting patterns going, but it isn't necessary. Try to get about 2/3 to 3/4 of the blaster covered in this coat.

Once the second coat is dry, go over it again with the third color. Here you want to be careful not to cover up the base-coat, or else it will look like you just did two colors. But if you mess up, it's not difficult to go over with any of the colors and add to places that may be lacking. Try to only do 1/4 to 1/3 of the blaster with this color.

A camo job like this can be done in the space of an afternoon with quick dry paint for plastics(like Krylon).

Lots of ppl take a more cyber/steampunk sort of approach to blaster aesthetics, but painting the widgets and fiddly bits on a blaster case can be very time-consuming, though not terribly difficult. Just do a coat or two in flat black(remember to tape the orange tip before painting) and then go to town with gold, silver, or copper paint-pens on any parts of the casing that stick out texturally. You end up with a very future-tech kind of appearance.

thats my $0.02 on blaster painting.

I have also found that aryclic paints work really well. I've painted my in black and then used fine tipped paint brushes to add more detail. As long as you spray the gun with a coat of lacker at the end, the paint stays on really well. My paint job lasted about 2 years before the gun's underlying paint job started to show through. But, the gun was red, so my gun now has a cool blood-stained look to it.

One word of advice: if you wear a lot of sunscreen, make sure you coat your gun really well, and reapply. I have found that the sunscreen eats through both acrylic paint and various spray paints.

Sweat will eat through a lot of paint. I solve this problem on my guns by covering the grip in gaff tape, or something similar.

If you want to get a sense of the look of the game, for costuming and armor purposes, go take a look at our facebook page. We've got some photos up there: www.facebook.com

Everyone has put forward a lot of spray painting advice. BY FAR the most useful trick I have discovered when spray painting a nerf weapon is to let the paint job dry completely and then use a few coats of spray sealant. Acrylic sealant works pretty well.

As Yelena mentioned, any surface that sees a lot of abrasion or moisture will start rubbing off. This problem is minimized immensely with the application of a coat or two of spray sealant.

Whenever I paint guns I disassemble them so I only have to spray the outer chassis. This way, no working parts will get jammed up or sticky with paint.

Daniel

There have been a lot of solid recommendations here. I do something different still.

I use Vinyl Dye for my paint jobs. There are a lot of pro's to this material.

1) Longevity. Vinyl dye is meant to dye car upholstery and other interior bits. I've got a gun that I painted over a year ago, and the only places that are beginning to wear are the corners of some of the protruding parts (places where I'm more likely to hit my gun against a wall, or doorframe or something)

2) Smell. After a lot of paint jobs using traditional spraypaints you have that spray paint smell that seems to last forever. In my experience the smell of vinyl dye fades fairly quickly.

3) Stickyness. Sometimes a paint job using spraypaint will remain just a bit sticky for an extremely long time, especially if you sweat a lot on that exact portion of the gun. I haven't had that happen with Vinyl Dye.

My process generally goes something like this:
Identify portions of the gun you want to keep the same colors. Tape these off using painters tape..
Determine which colors you want to do. Your first coat should be the color you want to be showing the least on the gun (IE Your detail color). Paint the entire gun here, excluding the parts you've taped off obviously.
Let that dry thoroughly. When you're confident it's dry and the entire gun has a solid-looking coat (It may take you 2 or more coats to get everything to set perfectly) tape off the portions of the gun that you want to remain this color. Paint using the next color.

If you are using 3 colors or more for some reason, and are not doing a camo-job like Chap described, you should paint in order of 'common appearance' on the final product, from least to greatest. This will minimize the painters-taping that you have to do, and limit the amount of human-error in that department.

Hope this helps. If you choose vinyl dye you can get it at most auto-parts stores.
This is what the cans look like: www.jdmgallery.com

Awesome stuff thanks everyone. Though i am still unsure on what to do for armor

A lot of folks will use sports equipment of various kinds. Just remember for Combat armor make sure its got shoulders and looks even a little "bulky" on you.

Sometimes its hockey pads. I personally took a military Molly Vest and the plates from motorcycle body armor and fused the two together. So I can pull it on quickly but it now has the back and shoulder plates from the moto-armor and the arms seperate for extra coverage. Add some baseball, swat, or moto-armor knee and shin cover and voila. Combat Medic.

Caveat: all of which ought to be painted or somehow other made to look like actual armor, not hockey pads and shin protectors made of plastic.

*grin*

*shrug*
Black plastic looks good enough to me. Remove logos and relevant information that takes away from the appearance. Otherwise Im not sure I've ever seen someone go whole horse and paint their gear head down.

Don't let your armor LOOK campy and "lazy". 50%+ coverage for each "location" (arms, legs, torso, head) if you want to be ablet to utilize the armors ability on that location...

As stated, armor depends on which type of armor you are wearing... Personal Armor, Combat Armor, and Power Armor all have different looks. As for costuming,well, that depends on the character you're playing. You DO have a wide variety of options in FI... pretty much anything but denim jeans, sneakers and reconizable brand logos or pop references.
Take a look at some of the photos and come up with an idea. Don't be too worried, many people's characters costume has slowly, or drastically, changed over time.

Some more drastically than others...

(I well remember the cast gasps of "OMG! Did Cape Ninja final?!")

My friend has offerd to help me with some carbon fiber so going to try it

Thinking of coming out and joining us as cast for our upcoming event, or possibly registering as a player in the future?

If the former, let me know and I'll answer any cast-specific questions you might have that I am able to.

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-Amber
Retired Logistics Goddess

Neve O'Brien(RIP), Magnus Sulara Oratia Somerton, Songbird, Elias Amory, Dr. Ara Grintner (formerly ZG) , Jane Sawyer, and Grace (just Grace)

Hope to play in yhe future or possibly cast depending on funds and time off

I haven't had to make myself a suit of combat armor yet, so I am using personal armor. I am actually using a grey padded vest that is a little small on me, which fits closely and looks a fair bit like armor. It is also easy to wash and keeps me warm during the first spring and last fall events.

I am new here and will be attempting to NPC this up coming weekend. I may be bringing 2 others with me as well. I've heard about this LARP for some time now but never got the chance to go. Anything I should know before hand?

Just brush up on the rules! We're going to have a great event - the colony has just spent two months in cramped, uncomfortable bunkers and is about to emerge to the site of their new colony. We will be of course waiting to hug them and give them free puppies. It will be a great weekend!

This sounds like a perfect cue for one of our FABULOUS Player Reps!

*grin*

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-Amber
Retired Logistics Goddess

Neve O'Brien(RIP), Magnus Sulara Oratia Somerton, Songbird, Elias Amory, Dr. Ara Grintner (formerly ZG) , Jane Sawyer, and Grace (just Grace)

Wait... Do you mean me?

*puts on pants.*

HI!!! I'm Rob... People call me das Grinner. I am one of two player reps who will be onsite this weekend for people.

What this means!

There will be two ideal times to get in touch with us on a purely OOG level. I will be onsite... well... tomorrow actually... SO people who were gonna help friday afternoon will find my purple goofy self running about here and there.

A couple hours before check-in cast is going to drug me with chloroform and tie me to a chair! While there you can ask me questions about the game to your hearts content... And so long as I can answer them I will!

*insert cheering here*

The next opportunity will be saturday morning with myself and Yelena (the other players rep! *more cheering*)

What I would like to say is this. WE are your player representatives... We are also players. Please don't try to drag up to us in game with a slew of OOG questions. If you can phrase it in character I'm totes on board and will do my best... But we aren't rules marshals and while selfish, I'd like to keep my immersion and I'm sure Yelena will agree.

Cant remember what poison does? Easy peasy.

"Hey grinner how do poisons and toxins work?" Not "Rob what does poison do"

I'll respond by explaining in in game terms! I May even SHOW YOU!... on... someone else of course... Not that I can do that kind of thing... *cough*

ANYWAY. I am (as you can tell) beyond excited for this coming weekend. If you all need anything don't hesitate.

Rob AKA Grinner AKA "That Guy" AKA "Omghe'ssoloud" AKA The Purple Blur or... Blurple!

Salutations and welcome,

There is a section in the rulebook that points to what to bring your first event as a player and as an NPC.

Blacks and changes of socks, clothing, etc is always good. Sleeping gear is good too, as are shower supplies.
Weapons we will give you.
Ye Olde Commons (the grounds) has a meal plan. We have posts about it and the cost, feel free to read them.

Please, feel free to ask questions and post them here. Looking forward to meeting you!

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Thomas Schlapp
Head of Technology
Future Imperfect