That blends in very well!  Nice work!  I don't think your marks are too repetative.  I like the almost chocolate-chip style look you ended up with.

Hell yeah!  Nice!!!!

I need to remember to do a few more of my holsters the next time I paint......which should be soon.  My son and I have new optics coming for a few rifles, and once we get them on, we will have to paint.

Adding a little paint to darken it wouldn't be too hard if you really want it darker.   Spraying the dark diagonal wide stripes before you sponge paint, will create darker areas.

To make it darker, all  you would need to do is spray the darker stripes over top in a couple areas.   Try not to divide the rifle up into even parts.  We want slight differences.    Once you have the darker colors sprayed, then apply sponges again, remembering not to use too many really light color marks on the dark areas.  Just a few, with more medium marks on the dark and black areas.

You can see the Light to dark to Light stripe fades on my AR9.   I just put a new Eotech on there this morning.   I'll have to blend the paint with the rest, and I'll do it the same way.  Spray my stripes, then apply sponges again to blend it in to the rest of the composition.

Absolutely.

Tolerances are too close on some....not all, but I usually error on the side of I want all my mags to drop free.  

Magpuls, especially, need taped.  


USGI mags I've gotten away with painting the whole mag.  I wouldn't recommend it.  

I had to go check.  I couldn't remember what I did.

I did tape the AK mags too, although the tolerances are so loose my guess is its unneeded.

Do this....

Take the nozzle off.  Put a pen tip in the opening of the can and press down.  Make sure the can is pointing down in a trash can and have gloves on.  

It should clear the straw.  Shake it up really well. And then put the nozzle back and try it again.  You may also have to clear the nozzle too, or replace it.  Sometimes if I dont have spares I swap back and fourth.

Mine do that if they sit for too long and I dont shake them well enough.  I think there are even pictures in this thread of me clearing a can like that?

I can never find the right ones, or any  locally, but I live in a small town.  

I have a whole rifle like that..... kind of like the rough flat texture of it.  


I was running low on some color and it was all o could do to get the last little bit of it.....and it was very old paint.  

Excellent job on the pattern.  

Nice!

This is the same mental process that students go through with Art projects.. ...there's always that point where you are saying to yourself,  "this looks like shit! I want to quit," and then, persistence takes over and the project magically comes together.  

It's an awesome thing to watch from a human behavior standpoint.  

Excellent work!

I do it all at one time.  I don't rush anything, just progress through the process.

Update!

It's been a long time coming painting new accessories and new guns.  Our sponge painting party ended up missing two arfcommers, due to life getting in the way, but we will do it again soon.  

My youngest son wanted to try his hand at this.  He's started amassing quote the little collection of guns, and wanted them to match mine.  

We started two nights ago, taping off optics.  I had another friend do the same before he came over to save time.  My son was pretty particular on his new scope we had just put on his R 700 .270win.





You can see the details in how we taped the optics and how they turned out.


Last night took about 2hrs to paint and touch up all these rifles.  It took a bit longer than normal, but that was due to instruction time, and playing around with all the new toys.

Sadly, I did not get any "in progress" photos.  Time was crunched, and I negated  responsibility.



Couple interesting results to point out.  This was, if you remember, painted with krylon.  I added the PA optic and just painted over with Aluma-Hyde.   Looks pretty natural.  I did sponge in a bit of new color in other areas to so the optic didn't stand out too much.


These Vortex scope caps are plastic covers with rubber bases.  We will see how the rubber holds the paint.  I'm guessing not well, but .....oh well...

Don't forget to paint the inside of the objective covers!




The cheek pad on the stock pack was still very wet this afternoon in the sun.  I know this works well, as it has held up superbly on my 10/22.  All other rifles were dry enough to move around at the end of our painting session.  The sun will help them cure quicker.


The 10/22 on the right, was my wifes, until last night, where my son claimed it.  This was his first attempt at painting.  

On a embarrassing note, I can confirm that the LaRue Rat stock is one solid unit.  I was an idiot and ran the wire to hang it through the Phantom flash supressor.....it cut that wire quite quickly and dropped my rifle butt first about 3ft onto the concrete floor.  It scratched my flashlight I was preparing to paint, but the rest of the rifle and optic seem fine.  Probably will need rezeroed.  



His 700 turned out excellent, but it's a bit thin in some areas.  He was so happy, he wants to do his AR now, so we will touch it up then.  His progress was pretty substantial from rifle to rifle.  
It's the rifle closest to the firepit.


One thing both my friend and my son and I all agreed on was liking the darker areas such as the one on my new LaRue 6.5 Creedmoor.  This was done by spraying a good sized black area,  then sponging darker colors over top, and blending it into the lighter areas.  I will try to do this with each new gun I paint.  We were using my AR9 as an example.





My AR9, again got its optic upgraded.

Alumahyde works.  Haven't tried anything else.

Color combination on that is awesome!  Excellent work!

That is an impressive 2 color version.    Love how you shaped the base colors.

Looks great!  I need to attempt a more flecktarnish composition like that.

Be careful where you set your rifle when out for a hike.  

I mentioned in the OP that one of the advantages of this kind of paint pattern is when you upgrade your rifle parts or accessories.

My LaRue UU 6.5 has been an amazingly accurate rifle, but the RAT stock just wasn't giving me the cheek rest I want on a long range rifle.    I want sure I wanted to go with the UBR like my .308,(super solid, but spendy, and heavyish)and decided the ACS is right for this gun.


ACS was black.  Didn't tape anything  off today, just wiped down the stock and area around it.  It took longer to get the materials out than it took to paint the new stock.  Paint was done in about 15min.  

Now it looks like it was in it when I originally painted the rifle.