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!

TRON style Motorcycle Helmet

Recently I was asked to do a Tron styled motorcycle helmet for a customer. The helmet started out covered end to end with stickers and needed to be sanded flat. Once it was sanded flat, I painted it with Chrysler PXR (metallic black) base coat and clear. Once that was dry I prepped the helmet again for more paint. I began by laying out the designs in 1 Shot Metallic Silver. I decided the way I was going to do this was by pulling all the lines free hand with a pinstripe brush (as I commonly do)... this would keep me from having to mask out all the lines and spray them. Also, it would keep the edges smoother instead of sharp. The widest stripe was masked out and sprayed so that it would look consistent. Once the 1 Shot was dry, I followed all the lines and circles lightly with an airbrush that had transparent white in it. This would allow for the halo effect to be really effective after the next step. The idea is to get the lines to glow like a neon sign. After that, I mixed up some Alsa Corp Blood Red Kandy and went over all the lines until I got the desired color. It took a good number of coats since I was going over whites and silvers with red kandy... this meant that the colors would start out  very pink until I had applied enough to make it red. The amount of kandy used also influenced the way the glow popped in the sunlight. Inside, the helmet has a deep red look- but outside, the sun light really makes this effect jump. The look of everything worked out great. 3 coats of clear and it was done! Doesn't seem like a whole lot of steps, but mixed in with some other work, it took some time. Thankfully, the customer was very patient and happy with the results.

A Knight with wings Killing an Anacanda while staring at a Naked Chick

As with any of my stories, this one will likely be long. No detail spared. My last post mentioned an airbrush job that i was working on that required re-doing because the frisket mask i used had left adhesive residue on, around and under the freshly applied paints. Removing the residue effectively meant starting over; which thankfully was ok with the customer. I started by doing a ridiculously thorough cleaning job on the airbrush, and starting fresh with all new materials. New frisket, new paints, new exactos, new stabillos, and new stencil material. It's quite difficult to find opaque frisket... which would have been really helpful since the base color of the fender i was working on is black. I did not find any and i made a lot of trips to look. What i ended up using was a matte clear frisket. The idea of using an opaque masking material is so that you can transfer the design easily to the mask, then transfer the mask to the painted surface. Like drawing on paper, then using that drawing as your mask. The black just just made it challenging- not impossible. So instead, i taped the drawing i did onto a table, then taped a piece of wax paper over top that (since it's fairly transparent), then took a sheet of frisket off it's backing and applied it to the wax paper. This way i could see the drawing thru everything. Next step is to trace out the millions of lines... and the more accurate, the better. The best thing to use for this is either a white/red Stabillo Pencil, or a white/red Sharpie Mark All Pencil. I used red because the contrast was easier to read then the white (found this out by testing it several times). Also i misted a light coat of rattle can fixative to the frisket so that the lines would not smear. Next step was to position the mask where it would stay for the remainder of the process. It's low tack, so repositioning it is simple enough. What was difficult was getting the mask to conform to as many of the contours as the fender had. It didn't really conform, but i decided that since i was only working on one section at a time, i could address each area or re mask each area as needed. All this work and i haven't even got to mixing color yet! Once the mask is layed out, each piece can be cut from it individually. I try to work top - down, or in pairs (no pun intended). For example, i did the gloves together, the arm and leg together, the wings together... this ensures that the tonality will come out close to the other. Especially difficult when pieces are done individually, but it works. Working from dark to light is also a little different, but i like it better since it allows you to build up color slowly. I started by shading from black up to gray (using opaque gray) in areas that were going to be lighter, then switched to white and followed the gray as a guide. Using gray also helps transition from dark to light rather then relying on the transparency of the white since it white itself will quickly and accidentally become to strong. Later the shadowed areas would be hit with a transparent black. Many many parts and pieces make up just the knight guy... the shoe alone is made up of about 30 stenciled sections. Once he was done, i got started on the snakey dude. First i lightly dusted the entire thing with gray so that i could come back in with a pencil and draw out all the scales. Although faint, i used them as a guide to color all the scales first with gray then highlighting the necessary ones with white. Once that was all done, that side of the design was covered and the lady part cut out. I also cut out a set of acetate stencils for the lady part since i didn't want to shade her like i had with the knight guy. The acetate stencils served as free hand stencils as opposed to masked out pieces. This would allow for a softer transition from part to part instead of trying to paint her like a robot. I'm still new to a lot of this so don't judge too harshly... i understand that with practice i will hopefully be better at doing people, faces, and portraits, but this is what I'm capable of at this moment. I'm not saying it's the best, but i don't think it's bad either. The theme was 'fantasy', so i think that gave me a little more space to practice without having to be photo exact. Making form and skin out of shades of gray is a little challenging as well... i can already see where i would do some things different in the future. And that's how we learn, right? By doing. Once the lady was all shaded up, next i did the details of the face. Mind you that the face is the size of a nickel. I don't find it entirely necessary to do everything with an airbrush- so the eyes, lips and hair were all done using a paint brush. This certainly adds to sharpness (a little too much sometimes) but makes the application of small things a whole lot easier. Each strand of hair was done individually with a paint brush... first with gray, then white, then shaded with a little transparent black, then white again in a few spots (using an airbrush to offset clarity). The original concept called for her to have blonde hair, but after everything was applied i thought that that would be the thing that would divide this picture. Keeping everything in the black-gray-white realm really holds the fantasy feel, i think. Especially since the effect of transparent white over black gives you a slight blue hue. Once the entire thing was unmasked, i went back and added highlights to some of the metal surfaces as well as softening the feathers in the wings. Since my deadline was this morning and i was just finishing up, i didn't want to get too carried away... but i think i could have worked on this piece another full day and really gotten more out of it. I really like the way it came out tho eventually we have to stop and go 'ok, were good'. Last but not least is the signature under the snake and then bam, it's done. It was a 3 day bam tho. With little sleep. Ohhhh sooo mush typing... and it's not over. I would also like to mention that i used a different kind of paint for this piece and i highly recommend it. I have found that with automotive basecoats when you go back in to do another layer of shading on a previously worked area and you mask it off you will pull the most recent layer off the previous one. Scuffing in between layers is out of the question since your barely putting any paint down anyways.... adhesion promoters work, but will help build the edge on your graphic. I found both these to be problems on the 1st attempt at doing this piece. The 2nd time around i bought Golden brand Fluid Acrylics along with the same brand Airbrush Medium and Transparent Extender. This stuff works great- very sprayable, the colors are great, and they are very permanent. Acrylics are usually water based, but when dry they cannot be reversed with water (like basecoat with reducer). Acrylics dry with a shell to them rendering them quite durable for masking and remasking. They also adhere very very well to themselves in multiple layers even after dry for a few days with NO unmasking problems at all. The tendency to use water to dilute acrylics is where you run into problems. The paint is designed with color and adhesion in mind... like anything else when you add water to it, you dilute its' properties thus effecting it's adhesion and vibrance. I spent a lot of time researching the product before i committed to it and in that found that using the Medium and Extender allowed for proper sprayability and adhesion without any sacrafices. This stuff works great and the line of colors are excellent. I will definitly be using them again.

Well that's enough blah blah blah for one day!

Now ask me why a knight has wings, is killing an anacanda and is staring at a naked chick next to him... where did her cloths go anyways?

Pics: The first 2 are finished pics before clear, the 3rd is part way thru the knight, the 4th is part way thru the first time around (so you can see the mess of stencils and tape), the 5th is the drawing i did to work from.

Second Chance... Some Assembly Required

A lot of things in the refinishing world are built in with 2nd chance scenarios (it's done right because it's done twice), but not everything is that simple to do twice. Or even once. Up until yesterday i was working on a Harley fender for Mike at Iron Works that has quite a detailed piece being airbrushed on it. A knight with angel wings killing a large snake whilst a naked lady is kneeling next to him. Pretty sweet. Round 1 ended when i found that the masking had left hideous residue everywhere in on and around the paint. In the end, the remedy was to sand off the residue because it was ON THERE. I cleaned it off, ready to either start again leave it blank. I got word from Mike that the customer said give it another go. In order to make sure the same problem doesn't happen again, i started by getting a new frisket mask. And to ensure that everything goes smoothly, i decided to disassemble and clean the airbrush... because i couldn't remember when the last time i had. The airbrush i use the most is an Iwata Hp-C Plus gravity cup. It, unlike the other Iwata i use, uses a 0.3 mm needle/nozzle setup. And anything that small is going to be picky about being clean. This airbrush works great all the time tho... it was messier then i thought, but it didn't seem to affect the performance any. I've broken 2 nozzles in the past just trying to remove them... but i managed to get this one out without breaking anything and without losing it. The nozzle is the piece on top of the penny. I spent probably an hour and a half cleaning everything inside and out. I straightened the needle, wet sanded the tip smooth and sharp, then polished every piece. Careful assembly and Wa LA. This airbrush works excellent and is well worth the money. I think i spoiled myself a little by getting an Iwata airbrush as my first one tho. I have tried others... and that's why I've bought 3 other Iwatas since the first. But it's like giving someone a Ferrari for their first car... they're likely not going to think: " This is pretty cool... but im more curious to see what an 89 Corolla is all about".