Bubonic Customs paints blanks for a living and has only been doing it for maybe 5 ish years? I don't know what his secret is but feel free to ask him and he has since QUIT his day job
I basically agree with everyone else though, my start up costs just on the HOBBY level were well over $2,000 for all the materials just to paint blanks, not including the jigs I decided to get into and everything else. Even selling 30+ lures a month I'm not truly making a profit because I end up dumping 90% of that money back into supplies.