"UPDATED W/Videos" How to Spray Paint Snake Skin Scales on Anything

Painting a snake skin scales effect is very a simple but effective way to dress up your vehicle, device, laptop, or pretty much anything! Requires very few materials and even no skills. Anyone can get dragon, snake, or croc scales with a couple of colors of almost any type of spray paint. Over the years I've picked up a few little tricks and for my first instructable I wanted something simple but impressive and I've found this trick to be so easy to do even my young daughter has done this to her laptop.  


The videos below took 30 minutes to make "Yes it's that easy to do"!!!

Step 1: Required Materials

Required Materials
2 Contrasting colors of spray paint (or another spray medium i.e. airbrush, paint gun)
A clear coat spray paint (I like "preserve it" for most NON-automotive projects like laptop covers)
A pair of fishnet stockings (the larger the diamond pattern the better, really any diamond shaped pattern netting will produce the effect, and you want get the weird looks like you'd get being a guy asking for stockings)
Masking tapes of different sizes
OPTIONAL: Frisket film (for additional masking off graphics)
OPTIONAL: Stencils (for additional graphics)

Step 2: Mask Off Everything

Mask off your parts that you don't want painted
 this gives a crisp clean edge to your work

Step 3: Time to Lay Your First Color

Lay down your base coat. This will be the under shadowing of the scales, I've found a brighter color really makes the scales pop off the project and give a 3D effect

Step 4: Put Your Project in Drag!

This is the most important step of the process. Once your base coat dries, take your fishnet stocking and stretch it over your project as evenly as possible. MAKE SURE the stocking or netting lays flat over your base coat.


NOTE: I forgot to take a pic of the Bottom coat with just the fisnet this was after I had already started adding line

Step 5: TOP COAT!!!!

Start spraying your top coat. REMEMBER to spray lightly and straight down over the netting make a couple of light dusting passes giving each pass time to tack up until you have a good coverage of top color.


NOTE: I forgot to take a pic of the single top coat this was after I had already started adding lines

Step 6: The Showstopper

Once you've allowed the whole thing to dry to the touch, simply peal back the stocking and viola scales.

Not real visible in the pics but that the effect I was looking for, I've added some of the gas tank that are more clearly defined.

Next step for the tank is to go back and shadow in under each one of the couple thousand scales to make it really pop out more.

Step 7: Be Creative Make the Design Yours

Being creative with paint can sometimes be a challenge but keep trying the skill will build with time!

You can use easy release masking tape or frisket film to design other artwork over the scales.

To preserve your new one of a kind paint job I suggest you make a couple of dusting passes of a clear coat to protect your artwork.