Feeling Lost..

[Skeeter]

You don't fool me Ben. You already know about the towel. The bait that you sent me was just beautiful. I have added that bait to my collection. It is displayed in a glass cabinet in my home.  I could tell you survived the head banging. You have the tallent and you do good work.

 

Thanks,

Skeeter

[RayburnGuy]

You don't fool me Ben. You already know about the towel. The bait that you sent me was just beautiful. I have added that bait to my collection. It is displayed in a glass cabinet in my home.  I could tell you survived the head banging. You have the tallent and you do good work.

 

Thanks,

Skeeter

 

I appreciate your faith in me Skeeter, but you haven't seen all the knots on my head or the number of "experiments" that made their way into "File 13".    Not sure what it is about building baits, but I just can't seem to leave well enough alone. There's just something about experimenting with all the variables that go into building a bait that fascinate me. If I managed to build a bait that would run around looking for a bass and when it found one it wrestled it's mouth open and buried the hooks into the fish I would still be trying to tweak it.

 

Thanks for the kind words. Coming from someone who's been at this game as long as you have that is quite a compliment.

 

Ben

[FrogAddict]

There is some awesome advise here. I started about 6 months ago and I was just looking at some of my first lures. Pretty sad paint jobs. I'm just now getting to a place where my mistakes are somewhat acceptable. Here's a tip, pull up a picture of the color scheme you want to paint (either an existing crank or a picture of a gill etc) and have it up when you paint. It helps me visualize what I'm trying to accomplish. Also, think about what colors you're actually seeing in the picture. It helps but I still have times where I screw up. Here's a couple of screw ups I've come accross.

 

1. Not cleaning my airbrush

2. Forgetting to reduce certain paints

3. Shooting too much paint

4. Bad lighting

5. Not planning ahead, just winging it

6. Purchasing a starter air brush (please don't do this)

 

That's enough for now. Hang in there, we all have a bunch of castoff lures.

[Bassin901]

I bought an Iwata HP-BS so it is a quality airbrush. I'm using Createx paints with reducers. I got a fairly decent air compressor with moisture trap. I think my air regulator is not working properly. Any suggestions on this. My regulator doesn't seem to go to the psi I want even when I turn it all the way down. I have fairly good lighting but could be better. All these inputs are helping me out now. Thanks to all that replied. All in all, I just need more practice.

[RayburnGuy]

When your trying to lower your air pressure do you open your airbrush and allow the excess pressure to bleed down? One way to do this is to screw the regulator out and then bleed the air pressure down to almost nothing before adjusting it back up to the desired pressure.

 

Ben

[Kustom Krankz]

 I feel your pain- know where u r coming from- all I can say is it gets better- I keep 2 or 3 practice baits around now for new color schemes because I realized I have no need for 500 crankbaits with small imperfections in them!!!!   about 10 years ago I took a 2 day airbrush class from terry hill in destin fla. who is a true artist-he is the t- shirt king and knows all the ins and outs of create paints- I took some baits with me and he helped me work out the paint to my needs which was invaluable- the biggest thing I can tell you and its nothing anyone else hasn't said is thin your paint to the right consistency, build your paint in thin layers, have a clean airbrush, and take a zanex(just kidding) but be patient-it will come  and unless you are trying to make a living doing this -JUST HAVE FUN

[Matt Moreau]

I guess I am just being hard on myself. My biggest problem is that I just can't seem to get the paint consistency right. Sometimes too thick. Sometimes too thin. I just want to be able to get even spray. I guess its a work in progress on my behalf. I will not stop though. I enjoy it too much that sometimes I dream of painting more elaborate paint schemes. Funny how it gets me frustrated but yet I enjoy it.

 

Dunno if this has been said but i dont think your problem is thickness really. Do you use pantyhose or something to strain your paints? Blue paints are notoriously bad for large particles. I had all kinds of trouble in the beggining because of this and in the end thats what it boiled down to.....well that and not having good cleaning habbits for my brushes too!

[O'l Robzilla]

I know what you mean I took 5 years off picked up the Air Brush watched a few air brush video's, now I'm killing it. Always learn and try something new or out of the box. Using someone else's  techniques is ok no harm in it. makes you a more rounded artist. Watch some videos on you tube, these will help you out. I watched car painting, taxidermy, guitars, and how to videos about mixing paint right to spray better. techniques how to use the brush as it was designed for. how different paints blend together. Research is the key to moving forward as well as practice. Show us pictures of your bait finished and tell us how you wanted it to look and we can give you some feed back. Good luck!

[DaveG]

Its like a lot of hobbies you never stop learning, I think thinning the paint enough to get through the brush is the key, just look how small the opening is that you are trying to get the stuff through..! 

 

With practise im now getting acrylic artist paint through my cheap Veda brush and they are a fraction of the cost of water based airbrush paints, like I say its all about the reducing, good luck.

[Bassin901]

Thanks for all the replies. I am going to try all the suggestions. Have been really occupied lately so I haven't really sat down to really paint yet. When I do, everything that I have learned will be put to use. Again, I have taken note on everyone's inputs. Really thankful that everyone has help me clear my head about this.