Painting Styrofoam

General Discussion General Modeling Discussion
1

As the title says I need a way to paint it without melting it. My son and daughter-in-law to be want an R2D2 center piece/ cup cake holder. I’ve found a 16" round ball that come in two halves, the perfect shape except it needs to be silver/gray. Any spray paint I’ve tried melts it like right now. Tonight I’m going to try a custom mixed batch of interior water based gloss paint.

Any one got other or better ideas?

Thanks

MIke

2

Water based should be fine.are you planning on sealing it to eliminate the porous texture?

3

This particular product has a really smooth surface and appears that it won’t need to be sealed. I ran a test a few minutes ago with acrylic art paint and it did not mess up the surface and in fact smoothed out the tiny bumps some.

4

Good luck with it and post pics

5

You beat me to it Mike. I was going to suggest Acrylic paint from Arts and Craft stores like A.C.Moore, or Joann Fabrics. Tons of colors to choose from. They are great for plastic models too.

Jim [cptn]

6

Yes Craft paints will not harm the Styrofoam and are very cheap too. I use them all the time for painting Styrofoam dio bases.

7

Here is a picture of the head in work.

8

Here is the head in progress

9

Wow! That looks pretty good.

Nice job!

10

Thanks, Got to build the frame and trays for inside for the cupcakes to sit on. The Skin is styrene that Is held on by super magnets. It’ll sit on the table until they pull the cover off kind of like cutting the cake.