When you have a project with light and dark colors, will the light color adequately cover a dark color?

For example, if you have black and white, can you spray the project black and use a negative stencil to apply the white as the second layer-- will the white cover?

Or should you spray the area white, apply a positive stencil, then spray black?

I'm sure the latter will yield the best results, but in this case it's going to be kind of difficult, thus the question.

Thanks!

Always lay the lighter colors first.

I will be doing a RipTile camo cerakote when I get home.

First the whole rifle will get a grey. Then I will airbrush a bunch of darker lines, ect.. Then I will place the vinyl pattern down, and paint the whole thing a darker grey. Then I will airbrush black on the very boarder of the vinyl pattern. And bingo.

Nocturnal Riptile.

Yeah, I kind of figured this, but thought I'd ask.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I have VERY limited experience but noticed the Cerakote has REALLY good coverage.  I put white over some black and red and it looked very good (no darker colors showing through).  I think the ceramic in the cerakote makes for a dense pigment that covers well.  In principle I'd say do the lighter first, but if easier to mask you may find it doesn't make a difference.

ETA: very limited experience, in fact messed up and hit the red really heavy, it wound up lifting, and masking is bad on teeth, BUT I first painted mouth white and then tried to mask the teeth so I could paint the red and black parts of the mouth.  Found it almost impossible to mask the teeth alone, so I wound up spraying the whole mouth red and black, then doing the teeth white.  So that white is sprayed over black (on the top teeth) and red on the bottom, but it came out looking very white with light coat.

(of topic but when I re-do it I plan to do the red/black (covering the teeth) and then fill the non-teeth areas with Playdough since it is 3 dimensional, and then spray the white last).  I'll do the same on the eye: pain the eye red, then fill the pupil with playdough and then spray the white.  I was very happy with the coverage of the white over the darker.



Second edit: the eye was painted over the OD and FDE (light coat with airbrush) and I can't see any demarcation of the two colors under.  So you can compare that to how the teeth look (and again the top teeth were painted over black).

I've done automotive type paint on jetskis etc. and sometimes you have to lay on a few coats to get coverage (and have to use light v. dark primers depending on top color) but I don't think it is much of an issue with Cerakote.  Just my $0.02

Thanks for the great reply and photo!

I'm going to go with the lighter colors first where I can.

I have one area where the lines are very fine. I don't think there is enough vinyl to make it stick to the metal and pull away from the transfer tape. It would be much easier with a negative stencil. I'm going to try it as a positive first (I think the lines would be less prone to wear/chipping if a positive stencil is used), but it's good to know the negative should work as well.

I guess we're going to find out!

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So here's what happened:









Not bad for my first try at something with more than one color. I have messed around with some stainless tumblers and that's about it.

I went ahead and used a positive stencil (sprayed the white, then applied the stencil, then went over with black) with good results.

Things I learned:
-always strain your paint.. even if it's "just a little" in an airbrush. Got some splatter.
-use an IWATA (or similar) gun for painting large parts. The airbrush can put out a lot of paint with the #3 tip and fan spray, but you can't get the nice even coverage like you can with the recommended gun
-flashed cerakote is not acetone resistant.. not even a little (don't ask)
-try a battleworn finish first. That way people think you meant to screw everything up.

I painted it all with titainum, flashed, painted the white, flashed, painted the red, flashed, masked and sprayed the rifle black. The issue I didn't think of is when you do the battleworn, you uncover the red and white (in retrospect it looks good, but in honesty I just didn't even think about it)

PSA Stealth lower, $220 PSA upper, $70 PSA blackhawk lower build kit, rattlecanned P&S RAS I picked up on the EE on the cheap. Had the CH and grip for a while. So about as inexpensive as you can get and a good candidate for messing around with. Hopefully will encourage a family member who is a RE fan but otherwise has no interest in shooting to come out and shoot.