Painting ?'s

I am looking to paint my DP96. I have an airbrush that should work well. What is the best way to go? Paint it all silver first? I have silver/chrome spray in a can, will it work? It is enamel, or shouldn't you use enamels? I see that most use acrylics. It is the same acrylics you get in a craft store? I will probably order most of my colors from testors, but I can a bunch of acrylics from craft stores on hand that I can use for some things. Also, Im looking for advise on putting in scratches, kill stripes, etc. Thanks

there are a bunch of great painting walkthroughs on here... look for the ones by spideyfett and r_boba_fett - both are great.

i did the silver first, then layer the colors on method. i used liquid mask from an art supply store to mask off the areas that i wanted to stay silver, since the idea of using mustard just bothered me.

for scratching, i used a caligraphy pen and a nail.

but yeah, if you read back through some of the old threads on the subject, you'll find all sorts of good stuff, and lots of pictures.

i had the same questions when i got my DP 97, heres my thread: http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/paint-question-9280/ i used enamel spray paint it worked fine, i just had to let the primer sit for a few days, also if i were to do it again i woulda done crome first and then scratched the paint off afterwards. good luck!

Thanks guys. I also found this site that has a good tutorial-
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/bingo275/making_boba.htm
I also found the kill stripe templete on TK409's website that looks awesome. I am really debating on painting on the scratches or scratching the paint off before it dries to create the scratches. I am leaning toward painting them on, just because you could take your time at it, and try and get as accurate as you can.

Are all acrylics the same? I have tons of Citadel paints and Apple Barrel. Would they work? Also I noticed that my Citadel "Red Gore" looks almost perfect for the mandables. Seems to be just a tad brighter than boxcar red.