There were some bubbles that were just below the surface under where the emitter goes, and along the grip, along with some pock marks on the back of the handle. I filled those in with putty, and sanded them smooth.
The next step was the most time consuming. I primered it with about 3 coats of Plasti-Kote black automotive primer. My favorite laquer primer. I then started wetsanding with about a 300 grit sand paper, and polished as I went. I was going for a mirror like finish in the primer. This proved to be a bit difficult, as there were a lot of places that were easy to oversand and expose resin. When this happens, you have to re-primer a large part of the gun, and practically start again. I ended up doing this about 3 times. Not fun.
Once I had the primer all wetsanded and nice, I masked the gun off at the grooves in the handle so that I could paint the top of the gun separate from the handle. The reason I did it this way was so I would have something to hold onto while painting. When painting with Plasti-Kote paints, any overspray that hits the item tends to get 'fuzzy'. I didn't want that for this item. If you place an item on a flat surface and then hit it with plasti-kote, it tends to get fuzzy on the underside. The goal was to set it up so that I could hold it in one hand and twist it around as I'm painting.
With that in mind, I used 3M low-adhesion masking tape (Available at Home Depot in the paint section) and some plastic wrap to mask off the rest of it. The reason I'm so careful with masking is because of the resin that this gun was cast in. Some resins take paint better than others, and the stuff that was used to cast this is probably about a "medium" as far as primer grip goes. If you mask with regular masking tape or scotch tape, you run the risk of pulling off the primer or paint when you remove the tape. One drawback to using this low adhesion tape is that is sometimes is SO low adhesion that it slips off. You combat this by taping OVER the tape with regular masking tape. It's an art!
So I painted the top of the body with 3 nice thick, wet coats of Plasti-Kote 7179, allowing for about 30 minutes dry time between each coat. (This was early Autumn, so it was still pretty warm in the evenings) After that, I switched the masking around so that the handle was now exposed, allowing me to hold onto the body during painting. Three more coats and I was good to go. Next I masked off the handle grips using the same 3M tape mentioned above, and hit them with three quick coats of Plasti-Kote 7173. When removing the masking tape from the grips, it is important to score along the tape lines with a sharp exacto. You basically want to cut a seam between the pain that is on the gun and the overspray pain that is on the masking tape. if you don't, you run the risk of peeling up the paint on the grip when you peel up your tape. Plasti-Kote is a great product, but sometimes it's TOO tough for it's own good, and you really have to work to separate it.
For the black insets towards the back, I used testors black enamel (the kind in the little bottle) and a pretty small brush. I used testors because I had it sitting around. Remember: You can paint enamel on top of laquer, but you can't paint laquer on top of enamel! It will wrinkle! For the red inset at the top, I used plasti-kote 7207, but instead of masking and spraying, I sprayed a small amount into the bottle cap, and then brushed it on. I used tamiya gold for the gold insets, also sprayed into the bottle cap and brushed on. The Tamiya was not the actual color used on screen, but I could not find the actual Plasti-Kote code at my local store, and I wanted it finished!
The emitter and trigger were next. I block sanded off the flash that was on the back sides of them, and primered them with Plasti-Kote black, but did no wetsanding. I hit the emitter with a couple coats of 7173. Before gluing it to the body, I scratched some of the paint off of the body with an exacto blade so that the epoxy would have something to bite into. I generally use Duco 5 minute epoxy when I'm setting painted parts together. Super Glue Gel is really great for resin, but the fumes from it often whiten anything near it's application point, and I didn't want to screw up the disruptor. For the trigger, I drilled a hole in the back of it, along with a matching hole into the grip, and used a toothpic for added stability. I glued that into place also using the duco epoxy after spraying it with a couple of quick coats of 7179.
Because of all of the time I spent prepping the primer, combined with the way Plasti-kote paints set, I decided not to use a clear coat on it. that would have required a couple more hours of sanding, and as it turned out, the finish is REALLY smooth as it is.