Airbrush Technique Issue 21

by Cheri Pearson and John Avila In the previous issues John gave you a simple scroll design and a one-color design start to finish providing you with a place to begin your adventure into the world of striping. Hopefully you have had a lot of time to practice your strokes and exercises. There is no set time on getting proficient in this art form so relax and have fun with it. Everyone has their own goal, whether it be stripping as a hobby for yourself or becoming a professional stripper and being paid for your work. To become a professional you must be able to produce a single or multi-colored design that is clean, even, balanced and most of all not over done. You must have the skill to apply your art to almost any surface in a smooth and efficient manner without the constant need to rework each design especially when someone is watching you. When a potential customer requests you to do some striping for them, it will help sell yourself as being the right artist for the job if you have photos of your work and examples such as tanks, panels, fenders etc. to show them. Many times the customer will have a sample or sketch for you to work from. If your samples resemble some of the sketches you are ready to get going; if not (and it happens a lot) you will need to be able to show the customer your idea for their design. You have to remember that most people just see a design in a magazine or on a friend’s vehicle and have very little idea what they really want. One thing I will not do is copy someone else’s work; even if it means losing the job. This skill is a lifetime of learning and I respect what others do, regardless if it is better than my design or not. In this article I will be walking you thru a job from start to finish. This is a design I was presented with by the customer. From there I show my designs on display that have the same elements. We discuss their design while comparing it to mine. The customer likes the idea of some old style scrolls and wants to keep it on the simple side. (Not lines all over the place). If you must present a lot of drawings to this person, even showing them how you stripe, you need to charge for this. Many people just waste your time and you will never hear back from them. None of us are here to do design after design, with no end in sight. It only tires me out and makes me less happy to do the job. Once the customer and I have agreed upon the type of design we move to the color and final layout. The customer in this case wants some basic gold-silver leaf to be the main design and the accompanying pin striping very simple. In this case the design will be easy to reproduce a multiple of times, which is also important for this customer, as they own a fleet of vehicles and is on a tight time frame. This agreed upon design will be almost like a paint by number painting, it will look nice and be within the reach of many skill levels. Now that a first sketch has been done and the customer has given me the go ahead on the design layout I will move forward. I will clean up the sketch, erase some of the original design and make the final adjustments. I continue to clean up the draft and then make a enlarged design the first being 135% and after final clean up another increase for an additional 25% I will then transfer the design to the panel in this case for your view, sometimes I will do a test panel for the customer if requested. Making the design larger than the actual size that will go on the vehicles makes it easier to paint the first time, gives you a great reference and an additional display piece once the job is finished. The next step is to transfer the design.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Airbrush Technique Issue 21

Airbrush Technique Issue 21 Tom Banks John Phillips & Javier Soto Lorin Gipe Patrick Kelly Paul Shaw Easyrider V-Twin Show Airbrush Fitto Kicks Korner RIch Milo John Avila ABT Reader Meet and Greet

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