Very clean, Geeb. I just stepped up to automotive finishes within the last year and I cut my teeth on textiles. I actually haven't painted many 'items' so to speak as just practicing on canvas through the winter months. Finding time is the big issue. As you hinted at, the hard part isn't the painting but the prep work to get to the painting stage. Sometimes that puts off a job for a long time for me or it never gets done at all. That is why I haven't tried any jobs for moola yet. I have negotiated a few, but I just don't have time ATM. So I just relegate myself to personal projects. I had a hard time deciding what to do with my 14's paint because I wanted it to turn out great but I also wanted a challenge and to be able to say yeah I did that! I was going to do flames but that just seemed too overdone. So at the last minute(as it seems most my decisions turn out) I decided to make a tear with the CF coming through. The design problems came in the fact that I did not use any transfer paper to lay out the design. I did it the hardest and messiest way, using 3/4 inch green tape and over lapping it. Then I drew the design. cut out the CF. Taped it back up. Cut the tear portion out. Painted the tears while not really having any idea where the shadowing would work. Then taped it back up again and went over the CF and shadowed to set it back from the tears. I think my tears would have been more convincing had the base color not been the black so that I would be able to shadow them and make them pop. That black by the way is just the Flat Spark OEM paint with gloss clear. I learned some about shadow placement on the actual tears themselves to make them look like they're waving, but it was too late by the time I had all the tape torn off the nose piece. Every time I taped the thing up it took about 45 minutes to cut the design back out and the first taping prolly took near an hour and a half. The hardest part with the tears was the curvy-ness of the piece where-as I think it would be 100 times easier on a flat piece to execute. Not sure if tears are something I would care to do again,lol. Another frustrating thing was cutting through all that overlapped tape when you don't want to cut through into the paint underneath. And then pulling it off in one piece. UGH! But I had a good time and can't wait to do it again.
as long as we are at it I'll add few more pics of my stuff just for fun.
This was an old red pool table stool from the '70s which belonged to my dad when he was alive and had been sitting in my pole barn in the dirt for years. I cleaned off the mold and cut the rotten ends off the feet and painted her up. This was my first custom piece with solvent paints. BTW, I like skulls, their not the only thing, though. It's just one of those things that when you sit down and start to doodle. Everyone has something they gravitate to when they doodle and skulls just come out of my pen the easiest so I tend to paint them more often...I like evil death.
A canvas I did for my step-dad 4 his B-day.
what the stool almost ended up as lol
RIP 08 Special ED ZX-14
2004 Electra-Glide Classic Peace Officer Black, Rineheart true-duals, HID with Hella headlight bucket, Goodridge SS brake lines, saving for DJ PowerVision FI controller and K&N large cap. kit.
2004 Suzuki Katana 750 (wife's but doesn't ride anymore) (fo sale), Hindle exhaust, K&N air, Dark metallic blue w/ blue led accent lighting.
1983 Suzuki GS750ES under construction(perpetually)