Playing with Acrylics: CM XB EVO

Nobu

[H]F Junkie
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The XB EVO is a great looking case'n'all, but I thought it could use a little sprucing up. Still working out the hows and whats, but it looks like (once I get an idea of what, exactly, to paint) it'll work out well--as well as it could coming from an amateur anyway:

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A bit of Naphthol Crimson mixed with Mars Black (aka, red and black) to make an almost orange color. Looks nice as a contrast to the black, but I'm thinking about doing camo gray to match the motherboard. Not sure yet. It's different shades because it's a thin layer and I was experimenting with different amounts of black.

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Some test patches, on the back where you wouldn't normally see it so it's not a problem if it stains. Looks like it'll just rub/scrape off, like I'd hoped, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Any ideas/suggestions? I have lots of paint (75ml each of red, blue, yellow, and opaque black/white), so don't hold back. If I don't like it, I'll just wash it off and start over. :p
 
Still not sure which way I should go, and sketching isn't really helping:
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Not sure if I suck at sketching, or--no, I pretty much suck. :/
 
Camo gray like you said might look pretty good. would that fit well with the surrounding desk/room?
 
There's not really a theme in the room; most of the furniture is natural wood, other than a few accent pieces. It's a dorm room, looks like a hotel room. The TV stand it's next to is a darker stained wood, and everything on it is black except the PS3, NES, and Wii (white, gray, and red, respectively). Walls and carpet are as you can see in the first photo, white and Dragon Quest marshland. ;)

What's making it difficult is, if I do too much camo it'll look bad, but I can't really figure out what on the case I could paint another color or leave black. If I do just the mesh on the top, it'll have to be a darker camo, or else it'll contrast too much with the rest of the case. If I do everything but the mesh, I don't feel like it'll look right (but I'd have to see it first...). I really can't imagine how it'll look done, so having an example would really help. Guess I'll start looking for some reference material since I can't come up with my own...or else bite the bullet and just go with the flow. lol
 
I def don't camo, but it turned out better than expected. If I decide to do it on the front too, I'll have to take it off--there's a finer mesh behind the hex-mesh on the front, and I don't want to get paint on that, especially since there's a good chance it'll cling and fill the gaps.

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Top
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Front

Was just straight-up grays at first, but I thought that was too plain, so I mixed some blue into some of my colors. Looks nice, imho. Could have looked better, but I'm not good at random, over-lapping organic shapes. Thinking I'll leave the over-brush that got on the rubber grommets. o_o
 
Luckily, the mesh is fairly flexable, and was easily removed by bending the folded-over mesh back up and pushing it through the panel. The top mesh is also easily removed without cutting, btw, by just pushing the pins out from the back.
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Not bad looking like this...but would look better if CM made 140mm JetFlo's. *wink-wink*

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Unfortunately, the middle shade between red and white is pink...too much? XD
Might paint over it in another color later.
 
The next step: Flourescent Acrylics!?

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Border and top half painted, bottom half not.
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Nice muddy water, right? Mix of 50/50 black/blue acrylic, some water, and about 8 drops of flourescent orange acrylic dye. Scientific measurements, I know. lol
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My brush dabbing papertowel, or that's what it became. It was my coaster. Orange spot is pure acrylic dye, blue spots are mixtures of blue flourescent dye and white acrylic paint, except the brightest, which is plain white paint. Numbers on the left are sharpie, notes for a game. ;p

Photos were taken with my blacked-out phone camera, in a room with a little natural light and one LED floor lamp. Need to get a real blacklight so we can see it really shine--any suggestions? Prefer LED, but I can live with a flourescent blacklight.
 
This next part turned out better than even I expected:
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Painted the bottom half of the CM logo with flourescent green "paint". The color I tried first (50/50 black/white + dye, to the left of the bright green paint in the tray, this time with less water) turned out way darker than I liked (because the pigment in the paint was blocking all the flourescent pigment in the dye), so I substituted that with some Aloe Vera gel, and the results are spectacular. In normal light, it looks maybe a bit brighter than normal, but otherwise you'd not notice. Under blacklight, however...
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Mah eyes!! XD

The gel solution works well for getting into crevasses, too. I used it to blot in the headphone/mic symbols next to the respective jacks, and the reset button, then just wiped the excess off with my fingers. It's in the first photo...you can almost see it if you squint--it's easier in person. ;)
I'm thinking next I'll paint the honeycomb behind the mesh. Haven't decided on a color yet--I'll probably test a few and see which I prefer.
 
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