The Bagger with LOTS of Pinstripes

A couple weeks back I was asked to pinstripe a full set of bagger parts off a Harley Davidson along with the matching helmets. The customer brought me all the parts fresh out of paint- the tank, front fender, 2 side covers, front faring, both saddle bags with lids, rear bag lid and 2 helmets. I decided the best way to execute the designs without introducing too many new colors was to start with blue designs on the yellow parts, and yellow designs on the blue parts. After the initial designs were layed out, I went back with white to add a little more to the designs. 1 Shot Reflex Blue, Lemon Yellow, and Lettering White were used. On the gas tank where the blue/yellow paint job was split, I did the designs 1/2 and 1/2- Where the tank is blue it has yellow pins, and where it turns yellow I switched to blue pins. Made a subtle, but neat effect. None of these designs were pre-planned, not even the matching ones.... just one line at a time fun. 14 designs in total.

The Moto Lady Helmet

Jeff of Saint Motor Bikes gave me this silver metal flake helmet to jazz up for our mutual friend in Portland, Oregon- The Moto Lady. After emailing with her a few hundred times, I had enough info to go on to get started. The reason for the vast number of emails was basically the creation of the Moto Lady logo on the back. I'd sketch out an idea, email it to her, she'd make her revisions and we'd move on to the next drawing until we landed at this one. And a fine one it was. Early on I had decided that most of the pinstripe design was going to go around the logo, so the logo had to be designed and lettered first. Once it was down, it was a simple process to allow the design to take shape with the logo as the center piece. I ended up using 1 Shot Black, Ivory and Bright Red, along with the use of synthetic gold leaf to complete the helmet. Everything came out suuuuper cool. I snapped a bunch of photos and sent them off to her for approval, and she returned them back to me in this beautiful package.

This is the Moto Lady:  http://themotolady.com/

More Pinstripe Practice

I swear I have a regular job with many many many hours every week devoted to my jobs. However, in order to maintain my sanity and keep up with practice, I try to as frequently as possible break out a blank panel and experiment on it. Today's experiment was a combination of things. Not all panels make it to the end like this, but this one did. So I started with a panel painted really bright orange. Next, I used a stabilo pencil to draw out the design I wanted to fill with gold leaf (faux). After the design is done, I brush in a mix of Sepp brand Gold Leaf Adhesive, a little 1 Shot Imitation Gold (for tint), and a drop or 2 of Mineral Spirits, using a Mack 10 series #1. I brush it in freehand instead of using tape to outline the design- I find that in each subsequent step not having the tape edge helps a lot. Now the gold leaf adhesive (or "size") has to setup to its tacky point... with this stuff it takes between 3-4 hours. After the adhesive is at its proper tack, I applied loose leaf gold leaf over the entire design. With loose leaf there is a bit more mess, but I feel like the leaf lays smoother. Once the leaf is well pressed into the adhesive, I clean off the excess with a make-up brush and careful rubbing. As soon as I was done I took a drill equipped with a velvet end and turned the leaf. Faux gold leaf doesn't turn really great, but it turns Ok. Even this isn't the best example. Once the engine turning is done, I use the same Mack 10 series #1 to brush clear coat over all the leaf. The brushed clear will go a little past the leaf, but with no tape edge leaves no built up edge to outline. After the clear was set-up I outlined everything with 1 Shot Process Blue and added a little to the design as I went along including some floating borders using a Mack 10 series #00. Once the blue was dry, I went back in with 1 Shot Aqua and added a little more to the design and to the straight lines using the same brush. Even tho the gold leaf didn't come out exactly the way I wanted, everything else came out great. Outside the colors really jumped. So here's a panel that made it alllllllllll the way to the end!

The Suzuki Boulevard on FIRE

This past week I got to work on a few interesting things... this particular one is a Suzuki Boulevard. The customer wanted airbrushed real fire in real fire colors (red, orange, and yellow) over his existing pearl white paint job. This automatically means a couple of things; the colors will turn out extra vivid because they're going over white instead of the normal black, and that a smoke grey will have to be used around the flames to clean up the halo effect caused by bases and kandies over spraying onto the white. When doing a job like this over a black paint job the smoke is not necessary and wouldn't really be visible anyways. A black background will hide most if not all of the halo and over sprayed bases and kandies. Also, it's easier to come back with a little black in the airbrush and clean up some unwanted spots. Not something so easily accomplished on lighter, 3 stage, or metallic background paint jobs. So instead, a little more care is taken in placing everything where it should be, and try to be mindful of the halo areas. This particular bike also posed another challenge- the tank and radiator covers needed to be airbrushed together ON the bike so that everything would line up and the color transitions would be clean. Normally this type of job on a motorcycle can be done completely disassembled with little worry of the artwork lining up with an adjacent panel. But just like on a car; if there are adjacent panels that are going to be included then the paint job needs to be done assembled. In order to properly prep the parts of this bike it had to come apart first (tank, radiator covers, front fender, and headlight cover),  then get cleaned and sanded. Next the bike was wrapped in plastic and protruding parts, like the handle bars, were wrapped in aluminium foil so that everything could be wrapped up as tight as possible. Next the tank and radiator covers were reassembled on the masked up bike. The front fender and headlight cover were done on individual stands. The first color to airbrush in was base coat red- this gives the general layout of the flames and begins the color build process. Next was base coat orange to start building the more structured pattern of the flames inside the existing red areas. Kandy orange was sprayed over everything at this stage to both deepen and enhance vibrance to the existing colors. Next was base coat yellow, and using the orange layer as the guide, I built up the shape of the flames a little more. At this stage I can see just about how the colors and pattern are going to turn out- so I mix up some base coat grey and start fogging around the edges of the shapes I've made staying slightly to the outside of them as to avoid getting grey on the yellow. I do it lightly and build up the grey until I've got it to a density I like and fog it out a bit to give a little trail. At this point things look a little messy. The trick I've found to getting the fire to blend back into the smoke is to go back with some base coat red in the airbrush and bring the red areas out into the smoke areas. This allows for the red to stay vivid over the red parts and to be a darker more purplish red as it gets into the smoke areas. It also helps make the smoke look like it comes out of the fire instead of sitting on top of it. Once the grey and red are done, I go back in with base coat yellow and resharpen any of the yellow that has been over sprayed with either red or grey. Then I hit everything with Gold kandy to give everything a nice glow. Now I'll go in with a yellowish white and highlight some of the hot spots. After that a little more Gold kandy is sprayed to make everything nice and even. Then the airbrushing is done! I carefully disassembled the bike, unmasked it and rolled it out of the booth so that the parts could be cleared. Any areas that were covered up during the airbrushing on the bike were touched up at this part to make everything look continuous. All the parts were set up on individual stands and cleared. The next day the bike was assembled and ready to go outside for some pictures.

While white is not so forgiving as black for something like this, I definitely prefer to do this type of job over white because you end up with such vivid colors. The smoke adds contrast to the flame colors and really helps them jump.

This customer was working with a budget in mind so it didn't get as crazy as it could have. He really wanted it done so we came to an agreement and took it from there.

As always, this was a lot of fun to do!

Some Pinstripe Practice

Whenever I have enough time to break out the brushes, I try to put them to good use. Lately I've had a lot of good use for them. But for once I just wanted to practice. While waiting for some gold leaf size to tack up a few days ago I did a few small pinstripe pieces on paper. I also set up a little stop watch to try and get myself to be conscious of time as I was practicing. Each piece has 2 colors, so there was the time to lay out the 1st color, plus the time to clean the brushes and mix new paint, plus the time to do the second color. Each color took about 15 minutes to do and each piece was completed in around 30 minutes. It was also neat to just do something without the worry of who it's for or likes and dislikes. Magically, these designs were quick, simple and soothing.

Pinstriping is FUN!