This is my latest sculpture I have been working on. It is a welded steel aculpture of a upcycled robot that I put together from odds and ends I had around. After many days of deciding on the finish, I came up with the idea of rust patina. I do not see alot of robots with rust patinas so I thought it was overdue. I have done this before with with another rusted composition. It worked out well enough. I used a spoon of salt in 1/4 cup of vinegar then mixed with 3% hydrogen peroxide and spray the steel. It works instantly but needs numerous applications to get a complete cover.
Having the robot rusted I felt there was something more needed. Then it dawned on me, I need to put a distressed paint to give the impression of age and weathering. That, indeed, will give our robot friend a characteristic and distinctive look. Considering the roughness of the adhering rust, I realized using an almost dry brush to apply paint could easily lend itself to a fairly convincing distressed look.
The key here is to apply a paint that is not too thin that it runs into nooks and crannies but not so thick that it shows brush strokes. When You have the right fluidity, you apply with an almost dry brush and leave some areas uncovered. This took only about 45 minutes but the finished results look like it took 45 years.
