Weathered Dazzle Camouflage = Stunning & Simple DIY Paint Job

2 coats of spray paint + angular masking = a paint job that is virtually impossible to get wrong

People often ask me how I achieve the weathered, dark, and angular look characteristic of many of my projects.¹ The idea comes from Star Wars’ beaten grey motif, plus the dazzle camouflage pattern employed on certain ships and aircraft during World War I and its sequel. Directly below is one example of this technique, applied to my rocket-launching strandbeest build from several years ago:

The basic idea is to first paint your thing whatever base color you desire–in this case black or grey. Let the base coat dry, then mask off stripes in semi-random angular patterns. Spray paint your thing with the other color, then remove the masking tape after it dries.

As shown in the DIY/laser box drum build below, you can even use random wood (laser) scraps for masking. The geometric circle and tab cuts make nice accents if you have enough room. Will this help you evade and/or beat out² potential musical rivals? Probably not, but perhaps people will be so in awe of your style that they will simply refuse to challenge you in percussive competition.

Masking with laser-scraps and other wood

Result: nice grey shapes

There are several reasons why this technique is cool:

• Simple to execute: two coats of spray paint + masking material

• If you make a mistake it’s part of the look (i.e. You can’t make a mistake)

• Star Wars was notable for its “weathered space” look, where space ships aren’t perfectly shiny, and they often act closer a 20-year-old car than some perfect conveyance. This paint job is meant to evoke those feelings,³ which I think makes engineers, and gearheads in general, more comfortable.

• Dazzle Camouflage is both interesting and semi-random. Again, you can’t really make a mistake when applying it.

Source: Wikipedia

More recently, I needed to convince my son that wearing a mask for baseball–after a bloody/broken nose-inducing slide to third base–was cool, or at least OK. Here a bit of team-colored dazzle camouflage/weathering seems to have done the trick, at least well enough to get by for a few weeks while things fully healed.

Finally, for my OMNI wheel robot from several years ago, I went with the black-and-grey look, but not a dazzle/weathered pattern. Either way, I think it turned out well, and it’s probably at least worth a mention here.

I hope you found this post interesting and/or inspirational! If you’re not sure how to paint something, I suggest giving it the dazzle treatment. Maybe even paint your house like that. Your neighbors can’t complain about something they can’t see! -JC

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Thanks for reading! I hope you will follow along as I post weekly about engineering, technology, making, and projects. Warning: I am a native Florida man, and may get a little off-topic in the footnotes. Maybe I even had an alligator or two as pets growing up. Perhaps they are alive today and could be used to test earth-wormhole pet friendliness.

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Addendum/Footnotes:

1. Actually, people NEVER ask me that. It’s a bit of a trope for people to say “a lot of people have been asking me” in YouTube videos, but according to moderately successful YouTuber (and friend) Pocket83, this is always a untrue. If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, don’t start making YouTube videos, because such things start to feel more and more ridiculous. Or maybe that is true either way, but I think it accelerates the process…

Also, is this the must watch video of XYZ, unlike the 1000s of others that say the same thing while making a YouTube face? Did you really forget to like and subscribe? There ARE some really amazing videos out there… but many just have a good thumbnail.

2. Beat out, as in beat like a drum and beat in competition. A dad joke adjacent comment.

3. Yes, I just made that up after the fact. Also, The Expanse has this same sort of feel to it, and I would very much recommend the series. As for my 2006-vintage automobile👇